Councils: Early start for plan to lift secrecy on spending

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles is writing to councils calling for them to go public with their spending – including spending, details of salaries and expenses – three months earlier than they are forced to.

He says it will herald a "revolution" in local government and allow the public to become "armchair auditors" keeping an eye on how their money is spent.

It comes after the Government said it was lifting the "veil of secrecy" over public spending by releasing the Combined Online Information System – known as Coins – which gives a detailed breakdown of public spending decisions over a threshold of 25,000 over the past five years.

The complex material requires technical expertise to study and is billed as being of more interest to "institutions and experts" than the ordinary public but the occasion has nonetheless been hailed as the most detailed public spending data ever to be released.

Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander said: "For too long the previous government acted as if the public had no right to know where their hard earned taxes were spent. Today we have lifted that veil of secrecy by releasing detailed spending figures dating back to 2008."

The release of council spending information is one of the next steps in a move towards a more "open" government which will also see hospital infection rates posted online.

In his letter Mr Pickles said: "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."