Evidence-first institutional intelligence
Public institutions publish change in fragments.
Intent Forge holds the evolving public record together, so you can see what changed, what persists and what the evidence does not yet settle.
A million and a half records, and counting.
Twenty years of public record, worked around the clock. New papers acquired, read, checked against everything held before, and kept. It is never idle for long.
1,553,451
passages of the public record held
1,125,142
documents compared against one another
24,436
papers retained, edition by edition
10,838 documents joined the record in the past seven days, and it does not wait for office hours.
We retain history so change becomes visible.
What we hold is not overwritten. Every edition keeps its own date and its own source.
So when a figure moves, the version before it is still there to measure against. The change can be shown rather than asserted.
What the record shows.
Durham County Council
The same future, forecast seven times.
Since 2022, Durham’s own plans have stated its expected budget gap for 2025-26 seven times. Each new plan replaced the last on the council’s website. Only the retained record shows the direction of travel.
£9.6m
stated April 2022
£15.0m
stated January 2026
Each figure is what the named edition stated, at the page cited. Indicative, not an audited outturn: the year has not closed.
Built on evidence, not opinion.
Every reading is built from evidence that can be traced back to a source, cross-checked against independent records, and challenged.
Each stage tests the one before it: the system looks for what would contradict a reading, not only for what supports it. Where the evidence does not hold, the item is held back rather than published with a caveat.
The North East Observatory.
The Observatory is where this system is put to work: the retained, connected record of North East local government, held in one place and added to around the clock. The findings above are drawn from it.
AccessThe Observatory is behind an access gate while its record is being verified. If you want to see it, ask: access is granted personally, on request.
Request accessWe are not taking open enquiries.
Intent Forge is built for questions that cannot be answered from one document, one institution or one moment in time.
It is early here, and deliberately quiet. The work is with a small number of institutions, and new engagements are arranged directly rather than through a form.
The record holds only what institutions have themselves published.
If your question belongs here
Write to us and say what you are trying to understand. It is read personally, and we will be honest about whether the record can support it — and about when we could take it on.
alexander@intentforge.co.uk