Pickles calls on councils to publish details of £500+ spending, but shies away from legal requirement

Local authorities should publish details of all spending over £500 in full and online as part of “a revolution in town hall openness and accountability”, the Communities Secretary has urged.

Eric Pickles said the move would “unleash an army of armchair auditors”. He insisted that transparency and openness should be “the default setting” and called on councils at speed to adopt such an approach.

A letter to councils last week set out the Department for Communities and Local Government’s proposals for a move to open local government.

However, it appeared to stop short of legally requiring local authorities to implement the plans as implied by the coalition agreement.

The DCLG instead said “the expectation is that councils will see the benefits for residents and grasp this agenda”.

In addition to providing spending information, councils were encouraged in the letter to publish a wide range of data online. This would include:

• 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.

The DCLG said greater transparency would “root out wild overspending, expensive mistakes and waste and could be the key to saving the public purse millions of pounds”.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles 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.

"The public should be able to see where their money goes and what it delivers. The swift and simple changes we are calling for 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.”

Pickles added that the information would put small businesses and voluntary sector organisations “in a much stronger position to pitch for contracts and bring new ideas and solutions to the table".

Baroness Eaton, Chairman of the Local Government Association, said the LGA would work with councils to pioneer an approach of openness and accountability.

She insisted that local government was “absolutely committed to the highest standards of transparency” and that councils had already been leading the way in giving taxpayers information about how money is spent.