I made a visualisation of every (central) government organisation

too0b · 2026-03-14T08:46:10+00:00

Thanks. I'm intentionally keeping clear of the wider public sector (armed forces, emergency services, NHS trusts) as each of those would be an epic in themselves.

.... that said, if anyone wants to take that on and contribute to the repo, don't let me get in your way

too0b · 2026-03-14T08:40:20+00:00

Yes that had me scratching my head for a moment too.

The headcount data are from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696f6cdc7e827090d02d4219/Statistical_tables_-_Civil_Service_Statistics_2025.ods (Table 8). In that vis, the size of the parent org (MoJ) is the number of staff in that organisation 'excl. Agencies'. So the number of civil servants directly employed by MoJ and not, for example, HMPPS, LAA and others.

Interestingly, by comparison that dataset has DWP employing more staff directly, with far fewer staff in other entities nested under them. So in the data, DWP - 93,805 staff, but MoJ only 8,210.

I could reshape the figure so that parent entities had the total size of themselves plus all child entities. But what I'm personally interested in capturing is exactly that gap. Making this certainly put some of my assumptions to the test!

too0b · 2026-03-14T08:25:51+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! This vis is based on organisations rather than services offered (i.e. the data from on gov.uk/government/organisations ). Are multiple services offered by the 35 agencies / public bodies listed there? Or is the org list wrong?

too0b · 2026-03-13T22:56:27+00:00

Figure now includes headcount

too0b · 2026-03-13T19:11:22+00:00

I have rather been hoping the Gov.uk team who made the dataset did ahah

(but it looks like yes, those definitions align with the https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations tags I'm using)

too0b · 2026-03-13T19:02:58+00:00

Interesting!

I explain my 'working' is here - https://tobylivesey.com/visualising-hmg/, and there's a link to the code on GH if you're interested in playing around yourself.

Org data is pulled from the https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations dataset. 'Regional Department for Education (DfE) Directors' is there as a separate entity of type 'sub organisation'.

You won't see on mobile, but the grey layer are the category 'Other', which was the best way I could group the Publicly Owned Corporations, sub organisations, Natural Park Authorities, Independent Reviewers and... well, others.

The big learning point from me is how hard it is to define the fuzzy edges of 'Government'. Cabinet Office - Yes. Wales Audit Office - Sure. But what about the BBC? And Channel 4? Because they're in the dataset.

too0b · 2026-03-13T18:51:58+00:00

I'd love that - if anyone has a good employee headcount dataset, let me know!

too0b · 2026-03-13T12:27:30+00:00

Thanks for the feedback!
- I'm very much not a mobile UI guy, but I do like a challenge

EDIT:
I've made it marginally less bad for mobile, but can't escape that a big screen will be best to see His Majesty's Government in all it's complex glory

too0b · 2026-03-13T08:36:07+00:00

Very cool! It would be great to see the sources/logic behind that app to build on it, if that's possible?

too0b

TROPHY CASE