Councils under attack over giving details of spending

Councils in England and Wales now have to publish all items of spending above £500.

Both Hull and East Riding councils have made details of their expenditure available on line but Hull and East Riding co-ordinator of the Taxpayers Alliance Andrew Allison found fault with both.

He reserved his sternest criticism for East Riding Council, accusing it of not trying hard enough to be transparent.

Writing on his blog, Mr Allison praised Hull Council for publishing details of all spending – not just above £500 – and its user-friendly format, but questioned the amount of editing.

Mr Allison wrote: “The council must keep the number of redactions to a minimum.

“If it doesn’t the net result will be more Freedom of Information requests, which will defeat the object of the exercise.”

But he said the way East Riding Council presented its spending above £500 “left much to be desired”.

He said: “You have to increase the size of the page by 200 per cent before you can easily read anything.

“This means it is impossible to read with whole width of the table on one page.

“ERYC may be sticking to the letter of the law, but they are not in keeping with the spirit of the law.

“Making it harder for taxpayers in the East Riding to see where their money is going implies the council has something to hide.”

In a statement East Riding Council said it had not had any complaints: “The council is complying with the request of the Communities and Local Government department to publish this information and it is readily accessible on our website.

“We have put a lot of fields of information on and are currently looking at this and how the information appears on the web. The council would add that there have been no complaints nor feedback of any kind from the public since the information was put on our website.”

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has said that publishing the information is “a good way for local authorities to be accountable to the public, it’s a good way to bring down costs, and it’s a good way for councils to reflect local need”.