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Prepare the data

The Cabinet Office Transparency Data team has provided this guidance on how to collect and interpret your data for publication.

Ministers Transparency Guidance (PDF, 193 KB, 21 pages)

They will commission you with templates, timing and support on appropriate approval processes.

This guidance will apply to transparency data for the period of January - March 2024 onwards.

Government is committed to publishing this data every quarter.

Publish the data

Create a new GOV.UK publication page for each data release.

Create a collection page on GOV.UK for all data releases, with links to each individual publication page.

Consider creating a www.data.gov.uk collection page for each individual data set

Publication page template

The publication title, summary, detail and file name is a government standard and must not be changed.

Publication type: Transparency data

Title: [Department name or acronym]: ministerial gifts, hospitality, overseas travel and meetings, [month to month] [year]
Example Title: Cabinet Office: ministerial gifts, hospitality, overseas travel and meetings, April to June 2024

Summary: Data on gifts that ministers gave and received, all hospitality received, any overseas travel, and meetings with external individuals and organisations.

Body:

[Department] publishes details of ministers gifts (given and received), hospitality received, all overseas travel, and meetings with external individuals and organisations every quarter.

Associations

Policies: Government transparency and accountability

Policy areas: Government efficiency, transparency and accountability

CSV attachment titles

• [Department]s ministerial gifts, [month to month] [year]
• [Department]s ministerial hospitality, [month to month] [year]
• [Department]s ministerial overseas travel, [month to month] [year]
• [Department]s ministerial meetings [month to month] [year]

For example:

1. Cabinet Office ministerial gifts January to March 2025
2. Cabinet Office ministerial hospitality January to March 2025
3. Cabinet Office ministerial overseas travel January to March 2025
4. Cabinet Office ministerial meetings January to March 2025

Collection page [GOV.UK]

Add the new publication to your departments collection page for this data.

Make sure the collection page is tagged to the Government transparency and accountability policy.

Collection page template [GOV.UK]

Title: [Department]: ministerial gifts, hospitality, overseas travel, and meetings

Summary: All data on gifts that [department] ministers gave and received, all hospitality received, any overseas travel and meetings with external individuals and organisations.

Body (optional):

Government publishes details of ministers gifts (given and received), hospitality received, all overseas travel, and meetings with external individuals and organisations every quarter.

Subheadings: Add headings for each calendar year, most recent first.

DATA.GOV.UK page templates

When the dataset is published, add a link to it in your departments section on data.gov.uk.

We recommend that this is maintained as a series of collection pages listing all historic publications on GOV.UK with a direct link to the .CSV resource.
An individual page will need to be maintained for each of the following:

1. Gifts,
2. Hospitality,
3. Overseas Travel, and
4. Meetings

Title: [Department]: Ministerial [the specific data set] data
Example:

1. Cabinet Office Ministerial Gifts Data
2. Cabinet Office Ministerial Hospitality Data
3. Cabinet Office Ministerial Overseas Travel Data
4. Cabinet Office Ministerial Meetings Data

Summary: This is a collection and collation page for an element of [your department] Ministerial Transparency publications [published here: {your ministerial transparency pages on gov.uk}.]

Guidance - Each CSV published on GOV.UK will be listed here, to enable easy access to a single stream of data on Ministers. Please use the naming conventions present on www.gov.uk to ensure data is accurately described and dated to specific period and year.

Historical Data

Where possible - review historical datasets on www.gov.uk and convert these to CSV format for ease of use within both www.gov.uk and for referencing within www.data.gov.uk.
Do not ever archive or remove historical publications from www.gov.uk