The Nieman Group at Harvard have done a great write up of The Guardian’s “crowdsourcing” experiment. The newspaper asked their readership to go through MP’s expenses claims and flag anything that looked suspicious, with great results. As of today, for example, we have learned that the average Lib Dem MP claim for gardening expenses is more than double the typical Conservative claim. But this figure may not include moat maintenance claims. The figures are also changing as more data is processed.

Read the article here:

http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/06/four-crowdsourcing-lessons-from-the-guardians-spectacular-expenses-scandal-experiment/

If you want to do your bit for the cause, check out the link here:

http://mps-expenses.guardian.co.uk/