About

Plain Data is a public-data interpreter. We take UK government and public-sector datasets that are technically open but practically illegible, and turn them into fast, well-visualised products anyone can use.

The thesis

UK public data is open in name only. Companies House publishes monthly bulk CSVs. NHS England publishes spreadsheets. DVSA distributes weekly bulk MOT history files via a registered API. HM Land Registry releases 32 million property transactions in one flat file. The data is legally accessible but practically illegible to anyone without serious technical skill and time.

A handful of academic projects exist around the edges, and a few commercial vendors resell the data after value-added processing. Almost none are designed for a member of the public asking a specific question — “what did the house next door go for?”, “how long is the orthopaedic waiting list at my local hospital?”, “is this company filing accounts on time?”

Audiences

Three audiences, served by the same engine:

• The citizen — wants a quick, jargon-free answer to a personal question. Mobile-heavy. Lands from search.
• The mid-tier professional— local journalists, campaigners, councillors' staff, charity workers, accountants. A recurring use case more specific than curiosity. Wants watchlists, embeds, citations.
• The researcher — wants the underlying data with full provenance, downloadable, with an API. We give them a public JSON API and (eventually) a Datasette-style raw-data portal.

Principles

• Mission is legibility, not advocacy.Show the data; don't editorialise.
• Numbers come with context. Every measure has a methodology page; every number has a denominator and a caveat when it needs one.
• Open licences only. All datasets are ingested under their original open licences and attribution is carried through to every page.
• Stable APIs from day one.Every product is backed by a public, no-auth JSON API. Embeds and API URLs are versioned and don't move.
• No personal data, even when public. We avoid ingesting personal data (e.g. director home addresses in Companies House) even where technically permitted.

Behind the project

Plain Data is built and run by Mulberry Interactive, a small UK studio.

Get in touch

Email hello@plaindata.uk — feedback, dataset suggestions, journalism collaborations, or just to say hi.