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Councils 'urged' to publish all spending over £500

Councils have been told to publish details of every item of expenditure over £500 to remove the "veil of secrecy" over the finances of local authorities.

Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles wrote to all councils demanding that such spending should be made available to the public on the internet by September.

The letter sets outs proposals for a move to open local government. Councils are being encouraged to throw open their files and alongside spending info publish a wide range of data online including:

• information on senior salaries, names and job descriptions
• councillor allowances and expenses; minutes and papers of council meetings
• job vacancies that will enable people to see why council wage bills are so high and how many of the positions are for key local services
• frontline service data - including rubbish and recycling rates, council tax collection rates and detail of major planned projects
• data such as food hygiene reports for food outlets - information which is routinely collected and of interest to residents, but not currently shared in an easily accessible format.

Greater transparency will root out wild overspending, expensive mistakes and waste and could be the key to saving the public purse millions of pounds. The expectation is that councils will see the benefits for residents and grasp this agenda.

"Getting council business out in the open will revolutionise local government says Mr Pickles in an article from Communities and Local Government: Eric Pickles - New era of transparency will bring about a revolution in town hall openess and accountability.

Local authorities are also urged to publish senior staff salaries, councillors' expenses and service data such as council tax collection rates.

Mr Pickles said greater transparency would help ensure that money was better spent by allowing taxpayers to scrutinise how it was being used.

"There is a need to banish the veil of secrecy and revolutionise local government," he said. "Local people should be able to hold politicians and public bodies to account over how their hard-earned cash is being spent and decisions made on their behalf.

"They can only do that effectively if they have the information they need at their fingertips."

View the full Eric Pickles Press Release on Public Expenditure

From the BBC News website Pickles adds "It's about being able to provide more for less, it's about being able to demonstrate how money is used, and the certainty that you're going to have to justify spending that money is going to be a big prompt to producing better local government."

In addition, "throwing open the council books" opens the door to new businesses and encourage greater innovation and entrepreneurship.

"The swift and simple changes we are calling for today will unleash an army of armchair auditors and quite rightly make those charged with doling out the pennies stop and think twice about whether they are getting value for money.

"Organisations that might have been effectively locked out before, including voluntary sector and small business, will be in a much stronger position to pitch for contracts and bring new ideas and solutions to the table."

Read more spending transparency from the BBC

TAGS: councils, spending, spend data, transparency, local government, open government, publish data, eric pickles