demonCoreData

Screenshot of the Tableau Dashboard. Available [ here ] and at the end of this post. (Updated: see notes at end) After much legal wrangling and foot-dragging, the Northern Ireland Department of the Economy have finally published a partial list of recipients of money from the botched Renewable Heat Initiative scheme . At present only limited companies and limited liability partnerships who received in excess of £5,000 (cumulative) are listed. The data runs from the start of the scheme to 28 February 2017. After the list was published (16 March 2017) a number of people complained that they should treated as individuals, and not as limited companies. These corrections were made and a second list was issued the same afternoon. The dataset used here is based on this second list. The first thing I want to note about the document made available by the Department of the Economy is that it is presented as a PDF. This is data! To analyse data you need it in a suitable format su...

Screenshot of the Tableau Dashboard. Available [here] and at the end of this post. Background In October 2016 Paul Givan (DUP), in his capacity as Communities Minister, launched a grant scheme to benefit both urban and rural community halls. Also at the launch was his party leader, Arlene Foster, who noted that: “Community Halls bring immeasurable benefits to the local community and this £500,000 funding will support groups across Northern Ireland to let them concentrate on enjoying the activities our community halls are designed for.” This all sounds lovely! Community Halls getting funding! Investing in local communities … seriously, what’s not to like? What could possibly go wrong? By the way … did I mention that the scheme was allocated all of £500,000? Keep that figure in mind! Fast forward to January 2017 – a mere three months later! And ‘what went wrong’ largely depends on who one asks. According to the DUP those nasty folks in SF and SDLP have gone and upset...