What contract registers can and cannot tell you

Public contract registers are among the most useful records available to anyone tracking how government money is spent, and also among the most misread. A register lists what was awarded, to whom, and for how much, but it rarely tells you whether the work was actually done, or done well.

That gap matters. A register can confirm that a contract exists and what it was worth on paper, which is already more than most jurisdictions publish. It cannot confirm delivery, and treating an award figure as a spending figure is one of the more common errors we see in reporting drawn from these records.

Reading the fields correctly

Most registers include an award date, a contractor name, a contract sum, and a brief project description. Fewer include a completion date, and fewer still include a final payment figure, which is often different from the original sum once variations are approved. When a register omits these, we note the omission rather than assuming the original figure held.

Contractor names deserve particular care. The same company can appear under several slightly different registrations across years, and cross-referencing corporate registration numbers, where available, is the only reliable way to see a contractor's full pattern of awards rather than a fragment of it.

• Check whether the register states an award date, a start date, or both — they are not interchangeable.
• Look for a variation or addendum column before treating the original sum as final.
• Note the procurement method used, since open tender and single-sourced awards carry different risk profiles.

What we add to fill the gap

Where possible, we pair register data with site visit notes or completion certificates from separate public sources, and we flag every case where we could not verify delivery independently. This slows the work down, but it keeps a published figure honest about what it actually represents.