Comments on: Local authorities to publish details of spending over £500 http://www.publicsectortravel.org.uk/2010/06/07/local-authorities-to-publish-details-of-spending-over-500/ Fri, 05 Aug 2011 06:20:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: tviljoen http://www.publicsectortravel.org.uk/2010/06/07/local-authorities-to-publish-details-of-spending-over-500/comment-page-1/#comment-428 tviljoen Sun, 12 Sep 2010 15:19:50 +0000 http://www.publicsectortravel.org.uk/?p=4425#comment-428 Although some Councils have already started to publish details of payments to suppliers over £500, there is obviously a reticense to develop costly reporting solutions. Councils therefore appear to publish the information in downloadable format either as Excel spreadsheets or PDF documents. Although this may 'tick' the required disclosure requirements, we do not believe that this provides real value to the public. Information such as this only has real value if it can be viewed in context (i.e. is a payment normal or abnormal). For a user to be able to make this interpretation, they may need to be able to look at spend in a month for a particular expense category against similar spend in previous periods or against other categories. Although some Councils have already started to publish details of payments to suppliers over £500, there is obviously a reticense to develop costly reporting solutions. Councils therefore appear to publish the information in downloadable format either as Excel spreadsheets or PDF documents. Although this may ‘tick’ the required disclosure requirements, we do not believe that this provides real value to the public.

Information such as this only has real value if it can be viewed in context (i.e. is a payment normal or abnormal). For a user to be able to make this interpretation, they may need to be able to look at spend in a month for a particular expense category against similar spend in previous periods or against other categories.

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