Projects/Where Does My Money Go/Data/COINS

We also know something of the contract and relationship between HM Treasury and the supplier of COINS from this information request:


 * 

This shows that the company who supplied COINS is Descisys and more specific FOI requests need to be made to obtain the contract, and the email exchanged and the meeting notes.

This report of a request isn't clear what it actually asked for:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2009/09/how_big_is_the_coins_database.htm;

Is it the database dump or the code that has been requested?

Our attempt to understand the structure of the COINS data is summarised here:

http://etherpad.com/jDWcTwzofD

=
Francis Irving made this suggestion for constructing a request for a data dump of COINS:

Dear HM Treasury,

Please send me a dump of the contents of the Combined Online Information System (COINS) database.

I understand that you have previously rejected requests for this database, as reported here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2009/09/how_big_is_the_coins_database.html

For this reason I am clarifying my request as follows:


 * Your response can be in any format, whichever is easiest for you to produce. For example, you probably backup the database, and it could be a copy of the files backed up.
 * If you consider the response to be too large to send, please say what the total size is in megabytes. Send a smaller subset of the dump, perhaps for just the last year.
 * If you consider that "the database itself involves proprietary software whose disclosure would breach commercial confidentiality" please send details of

a) Details of the name of any such proprietary software, and of the companies or individuals who make and/or support it for the Treasury. b) Any contracts involved in the purchase or maintenance of the software. c) A technical explanation of how the dump of the data inside a database can be "commercially confidential", when that data is owned by the Treasury, notwithstanding the commercial nature of the software storing it.


 * If you consider that the data is published anyway, please note that I am not asking for aggregate data. I want the detailed data.

If the detailed data is already published in full, please tell me where it is.

Your Faithfully,