BETTIMES RESEARCH · PAPER 03

Why Licence Status Needs a Date

A methodological review of source age, evidence classes and explicit gaps across the current BETTIMES intelligence index.

Sample
51 observations
Published
Data checked through
DIRECT ANSWER

51 of 51 records include a regulator, dataset or other primary-source class, while 12 carry at least one structural gap flag. A date shows when that evidence was checked; it does not remove the gap or guarantee that an external register has not changed.

RESEARCH QUESTION

What we tested

What does a verification date add to an operator or market record, and which gaps remain visible even when a record is recent?

MEASURED FINDINGS

What the current sample shows

Calculated from the linked dataset at build time. Percentages and counts describe only the published BETTIMES coverage set.

  1. 6 Sept 2026

    Latest check

    The newest verification date represented in the current ledger.

  2. 12

    Records with gap flags

    Missing structural fields are exposed rather than completed by inference.

  3. 2.3

    Sources per record

    A calculated average; source count is not a quality score.

Breakdown supporting the measured findings.
ClassificationCountInterpretation
Checked in last 30 days130–30 days before this release
Checked 31–60 days ago3831–60 days before this release
Checked more than 60 days ago0More than 60 days before this release
CONCLUSION

What follows from the evidence

Freshness, completeness and authority answer different questions. A defensible licence-status record needs all three fields, plus a path back to the underlying source.

METHOD

How we calculated it

  1. Measure the interval between each profile's verification date and this research release.
  2. Count source types and explicit gap flags from the linked evidence ledger.
  3. Keep freshness, completeness and authority separate: none is a substitute for the others.
SOURCE PACK

Reproduce the result

The HTML table and CSV expose the rows, source classes, source URLs and verification dates used here.

Open Evidence and Freshness Ledger Download CSV
LIMITS

What this does not prove

  • Freshness is measured against the release date, not against every later page visit.
  • A source may change between checks, and source count alone does not establish reliability.
  • The findings describe BETTIMES records and should not be generalised to the whole industry.
REVISION RECORD

Cite the version, then check the rows

Open underlying dataset

First published . Cite this canonical page and preserve the data verification date. See the source policy for evidence rules and the corrections policy for changes.