statnipokladna 
The goal of statnipokladna is to provide programmatic access to open data from the Státní pokladna system. Státní pokladna is a comprehensive budgeting, reporting and accounting system for Czech public organisations. This package provides user-friendly ways to access the open data from that system available at https://monitor.statnipokladna.cz. The vignettes in the package also provide an introduction to the underlying data.
Installation
You can install the released version from CRAN:
install.packages("statnipokladna")You can install the current development release of statnipokladna from GitHub with:
remotes::install_github("petrbouchal/statnipokladna",
build_vignettes = TRUE,
ref = github_release())or the latest in-development version with
remotes::install_github("petrbouchal/statnipokladna",
build_vignettes = TRUE)I also keep binaries in a drat repo, which you can access by
install.packages("statnipokladna", repos = "https://petrbouchal.github.io/drat")Bug reports
Please report bugs at https://github.com/petrbouchal/statnipokladna/issues.
What this package enables you to do:
- get cleaned-up, ready to analyse data frames based on open data
dumps from the public finance database
- the package draws on the online data and returns a clean data frame
- the resulting data is ready to merge into time series
- time series is built based on user input
- do this through a consistent API which supplements some of the documentation that is missing from the official endpoints (still subject to some change)
- access registers published alongside the data (e.g. lists of public organisations with their identifiers and metadata), some of which can be useful in other contexts
- augment the core data with the desired type of register
See the Get started vignette for background on the underlying data.
See also Background information below.
How does this compare to the official analytical interface?
- no limit on the number of data points
- no limits on the number of organisations, unlike the official interface which forces you to use a filter on some tables
- different reports (local gov, central gov…) in one place in consistent form
- much faster for analysis (the current version of the online interface takes long to render)
- reproducible!!! While the online interface provides a permanent link to your analysis, this must be copied manually and does not necessarily provide an easily legible overview of how the analysis was produced (filters, columns etc.)
- no need for the web => excel => R dance
- drawback: for some reports, the data is published in different forms for different time periods (pre- and post-2015)
- drawback: consolidation must be done manually
Future development
the official system has been partially overhauled in February 2020 and I am trying to find out about which parts of its new API will remain stable and can be used externally. Depending on the result, some functionality in this package can be streamlined and some can be added - e.g.
- listing of available releases
- checking against existing releases and data sets
- retrieving some previously unpublished data e.g. calculated indicators and budget responsibility monitoring
Getting started
library(statnipokladna)Get data from a particular part (file) of a dataset (“výkaz”):
local_budgets <- sp_get_table(table_id = "budget-local", # table ID, see `sp_tables`
year = 2019,
month = 9)
#> ℹ Files already in ~/sp_data/finm/2019/09, not downloading. Set `redownload = TRUE` if needed.
#> ℹ Reading data...
#> ℹ Transforming data...The data is automatically downloaded to a temp directory, so it will be
reused by future calls to sp_get_table() made in the same session,
unless you set force_redownload = TRUE. You set the dest_dir
parameter e.g. to ".", a directory will be created in your current
working directory and the data will be downloaded into it so that it can
persist across sessions.
It is a rather raw-looking data frame…
head(local_budgets)
#> # A tibble: 6 x 15
#> vykaz vtab per_yr per_m ucjed ico kraj nuts `0CI_TYPE` paragraf polozka
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 051 0002… 2019 09 1000… 7508… CZ03 CZ03 3 6409 5364
#> 2 051 0002… 2019 09 1000… 7508… CZ03 CZ03 3 6409 5909
#> 3 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1111
#> 4 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1112
#> 5 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1113
#> 6 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1121
#> # … with 4 more variables: budget_adopted <dbl>, budget_amended <dbl>,
#> # budget_spending <dbl>, period_vykaz <date>but it has been cleaned up, and can be enriched with any of the metadata codelists:
functional_categories <- sp_get_codelist("paragraf")
#> ℹ Codelist file already in '~/sp_data/', not downloading. Set `redownload = TRUE` if needed.
#> ℹ Processing codelist datafunctional_categories
#> # A tibble: 552 x 7
#> paragraf skupina pododdil oddil paragraf_nazev start_date end_date
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <date> <date>
#> 1 0000 0 0 0 Pro příjmy (technický … 1900-01-01 9999-12-31
#> 2 1011 1 101 10 Udržování výrobního po… 1900-01-01 9999-12-31
#> 3 1012 1 101 10 Podnikání a restruktur… 1900-01-01 9999-12-31
#> 4 1013 1 101 10 Genetický potenciál ho… 1900-01-01 9999-12-31
#> 5 1014 1 101 10 Ozdravování hospodářsk… 1900-01-01 9999-12-31
#> 6 1019 1 101 10 Ostatní zemědělská a p… 1900-01-01 9999-12-31
#> 7 1021 1 102 10 Organizace trhu s prod… 1900-01-01 9999-12-31
#> 8 1022 1 102 10 Organizace trhu s výro… 1900-01-01 9999-12-31
#> 9 1023 1 102 10 Organizace trhu s prod… 1900-01-01 9999-12-31
#> 10 1024 1 102 10 Organizace trhu s výro… 1900-01-01 9999-12-31
#> # … with 542 more rowsThis contains all codes for this codelist, some of which are not valid
for the time period of our core data. The function add_codelist()
resolves this automatically.
As you can see below, you can
- add multiple codelists in one pipe
- add a codelist without downloading it first - just pass its ID to the function as a character instead of an object.
Codelists are also cached, but you have one in your namespace, you can pass it as an object, provided that it has the right columns.
local_budgets %>%
sp_add_codelist(functional_categories) %>%
sp_add_codelist("polozka")
#> ℹ Codelist file already in '~/sp_data/', not downloading. Set `redownload = TRUE` if needed.
#> ℹ Processing codelist data
#> # A tibble: 1,189,627 x 27
#> vykaz vtab per_yr per_m ucjed ico kraj nuts `0CI_TYPE` paragraf polozka
#> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>
#> 1 051 0002… 2019 09 1000… 7508… CZ03 CZ03 3 6409 5364
#> 2 051 0002… 2019 09 1000… 7508… CZ03 CZ03 3 6409 5909
#> 3 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1111
#> 4 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1112
#> 5 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1113
#> 6 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1121
#> 7 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1122
#> 8 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1211
#> 9 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1332
#> 10 051 0001… 2019 09 1000… 0006… CZ010 CZ01… 2 0000 1333
#> # … with 1,189,617 more rows, and 16 more variables: budget_adopted <dbl>,
#> # budget_amended <dbl>, budget_spending <dbl>, period_vykaz <date>,
#> # skupina <chr>, pododdil <chr>, oddil <chr>,
#> # functional_categories_paragraf_nazev <chr>,
#> # functional_categories_start_date <date>,
#> # functional_categories_end_date <date>, polozka_start_date <date>,
#> # polozka_end_date <date>, trida <chr>, seskupeni <chr>, podseskupeni <chr>,
#> # polozka_nazev <chr>Download a whole “výkaz” (dataset/data dump):
sp_get_dataset("finm") # dataset ID, see `sp_datasets`
#> Warning: Either year or month not set.
#> Using defaults of 2018 and 12.
#> ● Set these values explicitly for reproducibility as the defaults may change in the future
#> to provide access to the latest data by default.
#> ℹ Files already in ~/sp_data/finm/2018/12, not downloading. Set `redownload = TRUE` if needed.This will put the files in a temp directory.
Then look at its documentation:
statnipokladna::sp_get_dataset_doc("finm")
#> ℹ Getting dataset documentation from http://monitor.statnipokladna.cz/data/struktura/finm.xlsx
#> ℹ File downloaded to '~/sp_data/finm.xlsx'.You can get details of all the available tables in the sp_tables data
frame; for datasets, see sp_datasets.
Background information
Note that while the package provides a bridge from complicated data dumps to a clean data structure, you still need quite a bit of domain knowledge to be able analyse the data safely.
See the “How the data works” vignette (in Czech only, the terminology is impossible to translate) for an overview of the structure of the data on which this package draws. This also contains some notes useful for interpreting the data.
A subset of this information is in the Get started vignette.
There is also a log of various data gotchas I discovered, also in Czech only, stored in the data issues vignette.
A basic glossary of some of the terms used in the data sets is at http://monitor.statnipokladna.cz/metodika/.
Note
Not created or endorsed by the Czech Ministry of Finance, who produce the data - but they definitely deserve credit for releasing the data and maintaining the application.
See also
R Packages
- CzechData by @JanCaha for (mainly) geospatial data about the Czech Republic (both admin. boundaries and topology and geography)
- RCzechia for another approach to Czech geospatial data and access to the official public geocoder and reverse geocoder
- czso for access to Czech statistical open data
- eurostat for access to Eurostat data
- OECD for access to OECD data, incl. a large amount of financial and economic data
Other Czech public data
- National Open Data Catalogue
- KNOD by Ondřej Kokeš for an overview of public data
- Hlídač státu by @michalblaha for easy (web and API) access to a large suite of transparency-focused datasets and their integration (public disclosures of contracts, tenders, political contributions…)
- CEDR for a database of public subsidies, incl. to public bodies
Acknowledgments
Thanks to @smallhillcz and the Státní pokladna/Monitor developers and maintainers for responding to queries and generally keeping the thing running.
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING.md for a guide on how to contribute to the project.
Please note that the ‘statnipokladna’ project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By contributing to this project, you agree to abide by its terms.