‘In stories like this, the data and the methodology are key’: when private equity meets public service journalism

Politicians and economists have raised concerns over the ‘financial fragility’ created by private equity-backed firms Composite: Prina Shah for the Guardian / Getty Images

When Carmen Aguilar García began investigating the involvement of private equity firms in England’s childcare sector with her fellow data journalists three years ago, she didn’t imagine her efforts would one day be scaled up to examine private equity’s role in the entire UK economy. That ambitious undertaking by Carmen and colleagues from across the Guardian was published earlier this week.

“The initial investigation into the childcare sector in 2023 was already challenging and a big team effort,” says Carmen, a data projects editor at the Guardian. “Extrapolating it to the whole economy did not seem realistic back then.”