Summary

  • Companies House opened more than 170 million digital records free of charge on 22 June 2015, through both a website and an API.
  • Removing the fee changed the economics of asking follow-up questions; user research and company-name search helped turn the collection into a usable service.

A public record can have a surprisingly private relationship with your wallet. In July 2014, the British government described Companies House searches costing up to £1 for appointments, charges and document images, including accounts. Small money, until one answer sends you looking for another document. Who runs this company? What did it file last year? Who held the job before? Curiosity rarely submits a tidy purchase order.

The government's announcement put an annual number on that little toll booth: customers had spent £8.7 million accessing company information online in 2013/14. It promised free public digital information in the second quarter of 2015. Work requiring manual intervention would keep a cost-recovery charge. The distinction was practical: retrieving a digital record would stop being an occasion to collect money.

Two entrances, one register

On 22 June 2015, the new public beta opened access to more than 170 million digital records. Accounts, filings and information about directors and secretaries were among the material available. The announcement offered two routes: a web service for visitors and an application programming interface, or API, for software. Both gave access to company updates.

Tim Moss, the registrar, announced the same change that day. The number described records. A company's life generates paperwork, so the collection could grow far larger than the number of companies. The useful object for a reader was a trail of documents and appointments, with enough history to ask the next question.

Mike Bracken's GDS account described entering a company name and reaching filed documents and past and present officers. These records had long been public. Now a browser could do the fetching without a fee attached to the inspection. An API extended that change to software: a developer could build a service around access to the register, instead of making each customer repeat a website visit. The registry was becoming something other people's work could call upon.

The people behind the one-way glass

There was a less glamorous room behind this grand opening. Companies House had built its own usability laboratory in 2012. A March 2015 account describes one-way observation glass and space for 15 observers. Around 800 customers had volunteered for usability work; 60 local customers could be invited into the lab. A government interface had acquired an audience capable of watching somebody get stuck.

That matters because a free button can still lead into a maze. Staff need to see whether a visitor can find the right company, recognise the relevant filing and return to it. The researchers also wanted to spend more time with customers in their own surroundings. The laboratory was convenient; the customer's actual working day supplied the harder exam.

The launch therefore joined a pricing decision to a service decision. Removing the toll made repeated inspection cheaper. Search and software access made repeated inspection easier to organise. The public register had finally stopped rattling a collection tin every time part of its digital cupboard was opened.