Source-first architecture

Method

This platform traces public money from the authority that approved expenditure through to the organisation that received it. It answers one question: who authorised what, for whom, for how much, and on what basis.

Receiving a public contract is lawful and ordinary. We never label a person or company corrupt, criminal, complicit or unethical because they received public money. We publish records and arithmetic; readers reach their own conclusions.

We distinguish the awarding authority (the body legally awarding the contract), the decision or committee recorded as approving it, any named official documented in an official record, and the supplier. We never infer that a councillor, officer or politician personally approved a contract simply because they held a relevant post at the time.

Evidence tiers

Verified fact

Directly supported by an authoritative record, with a link and a retrieval date.

Calculated

Derived mathematically from verified records. The arithmetic is stated.

Inference

Suggested by the records but not explicitly stated by them. Labelled, never presented as fact.

Unverified

Not yet independently established. Shown as a known gap rather than omitted.

Primary sources

AI research engine

AI may

  • · Locate contract notices and award notices
  • · Extract structured fields from procurement documents
  • · Match company identities and flag duplicate notices
  • · Connect modifications to their original contract
  • · Summarise documents and locate council minutes
  • · Calculate totals and construct timelines
  • · Highlight missing information

AI must never

  • · Generate an allegation, accusation or moral judgement
  • · Assert a substantive fact without citing the underlying record
  • · Silently convert an inference into a verified fact
  • · Resolve conflicting evidence privately — conflicts are displayed
  • · Attribute a decision to an individual not named in a record

The brand name represents an accountability mission, not a finding about any individual or company. No allegation is ever generated from that rhetoric.