The goal of the Spend Network websites ("Spend Network") is to allow anyone to explore our work, including any data we publish on Government purchasing data. We are publishing the data on Spend Network using an open licence wherever possible. This means we want you to use and reuse our data, we encourage you to use the data for journalism, academic research and to link to other open data websites.
We strongly believe in open data, but we are still a business and Spend Network is a profit making enterprise. Spend Network is published by Ticon UK Ltd, a company limited by shares and registered in England under company number 04962733 ("we", "us", "our"). These are the terms on which we make Spend Network website available to you:
We offer free and paid for access to our services and API. If you have agreed to a paid-for use of our services or API, these terms and conditions supplement that contract and, in cases of conflict, the wording of the paid-for contract will take precedence.
The data on spending, contracts and tenders that is available through Spend Network ("purchasing data") is drawn from many different government sources. In some cases the source data have errors which we have not yet detected and in other cases the data has been provided in complex and hard to process formats, which may have given rise to errors in the way it is presented on Spend Network. Therefore we cannot make any promises as to the quality of purchasing data. You use the purchasing data entirely at your own risk.
For this reason, and because Spend Network is made available without charge, we limit our liability as follows:
Spend Network is provided "AS IS" and on an "IS AVAILABLE" basis without any representations or any kind of warranty made (whether express or implied by law) to the extent permitted by law, including the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security and accuracy.
Under no circumstances will we be liable for any of the following losses or damage (whether such losses were foreseen, foreseeable, known or otherwise): (a) loss of data; (b) loss of revenue or anticipated profits; (c) loss of business; (d) loss of opportunity; (e) loss of goodwill or injury to reputation; (f) losses suffered by third parties; or (g) any indirect, consequential, special or exemplary damages arising from the use of Spend Network regardless of the form of action.
We do not warrant that functions contained in Spend Network content will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that Spend Network or the servers that make it available are free of viruses or bugs.
Our goal is to make purchasing information widely available and available for reuse, and because of that we not only do not charge for use of the site, we also provide an API to allow easy access to the underlying data under an open licence. However, we do need to ensure that we can continue to provide the service for the benefit of all, and so need to place certain restrictions on use of site. For example, “scraping” imposes an unreasonable demand on our servers. Therefore you must not scrape the Spend Network website to extract data, and if you wish to make use of purchasing data in bulk, then you should contact us.
For this reason, and others (e.g. abuse, spam, etc), we may have to forbid use of Spend Network in some circumstances. You may not use Spend Network if we have previously forbidden you to do so, nor may you do so on behalf of someone else we have forbidden from using Spend Network. Access to Spend Network in these circumstances may constitute a criminal offence under section 1 of the UK Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will consider prosecuting individuals or companies who access our site when forbidden to do so.
Unless otherwise stated, the Spend Network database is licensed under the Open Database Licence. A plain language summary of the ODbL is available on the Open Data Commons website.
We source the information in our databases from government and other sources through a variety of means including: directly from government websites and APIs, from publicly available datasets, or through Freedom of Information requests. We spend a lot of time, effort, and even money in getting this data and turning it into a workable and highly usable resource.
We do not claim any rights over the information we receive from our government sources, and attribute them whenever possible. This is known as the "Contents" in the ODbL licence.
We do however claim rights over our database of this information.
The ODbL requires you to attribute your use of our database. This is important as it allows us (and in turn others with open data projects) to benefit from reuse of our work, and so allows us to continue to provide this service. Use of any data must be accompanied by a hyperlink reading "from Spend Network" and linking to either the Spend Network homepage or the page referring to the information in question. The URLs for our data will be standardised in our forthcoming API and we would expect you to use the precise form.
The attribution must be large and clear enough to be clearly associated with the usage, and must in all cases be no smaller than 70% of the largest font relating to the information or 9px , whichever is the larger. If you are making the information available via your own API you need to make sure your users comply with all these conditions.
Citing us in a report or mentioning the source in a newspaper article you write directly supports our work and allows us to create great databases.
The ODbL also requires you to share any improvements you make to our databases under the ODbL as well. For example, if you combine the information with your own data, the resultant information must be published under the Attribution Share-Alike ODbL. This means that all users can benefit from both of our work on the database.
If you wish to use the database, or part of the database, without one or more of these restrictions, please contact us for a non-share-alike licence.
The content of the site that has been produced or generated by Spend Network is covered by the Creative Commons Share-Alike By Attribution licence. This does not cover the database (see above).
Permissions beyond the scope of this licence may be available. Please contact us if you think you may need additional permission.
By subscribing to any of our email automation services, then you agree that we may publish your name and any logo, on this website and on any successor website that we may operate from time to time, on such page and in such position as we may determine in our sole discretion.
Please note that site software for our sites do not fall under this licence or this copyright policy. We often use open-source software, and for more on the software we use, you should visit their respective homepages.
Fair dealing, fair use, and other exceptions to copyright law:
Some content on this website is presented here as a result of copyright exceptions such as fair dealing, fair use, or other exceptions. Our copyright policy does not cover content used here under these exceptions. As a result, your use of this material may not come under the same legal exception.
We do not restrict your fair use or other copyright exceptions that you may have for our materials covered under this policy.
It is the policy of this website to respect the copyright of others.
If you see anything that you think shouldn't be here, let us know here.
The site copyright licence does not apply to any trade marks, registered or unregistered, used on this site. The site copyright licence also does not apply to any copyright that applies to different elements of a trademark, such as a logo or particular work representing the trade mark.
Use of the names Spend Network or any site logos are not covered by this licence.
If you have any questions, get in touch here.
Thank you.
The Spend Network Team.
