Nottingham City Council to publish its spending on the web
Nottingham City Council is to publish its spending above £500, online.
Rather than publishing spending over an arbitrary threshold of £500 and having to manage the cost and time associated with administering and collecting information and responding to queries, we have used the opportunity presented by new systems introduced through sharing finance functions with another council to publish all spending data at little or no cost.
– Ian Curryer, acting Deputy Chief Executive
It means that people in Nottingham will now be able to see what the council has been spending. It comes after nearly a year of campaigns from the TaxPayers' Alliance for the information to be made available.
"After years keeping Nottingham residents in the dark, it is great news that the council is finally going to release proper detail about how it spends taxpayers’ money. Hundreds of other local authorities across the country have published this data for some time now, there was never any good excuse for Nottingham City Council alone holding out."
– Matthew Sinclair, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance
Nottinghamshire County Council has been named as having the highest allowances of any English County Council.
The Deputy Leader of Nottinghamshire Council Council has defended the allowances paid to councillors.
It says the allowances are set following recommendations made by an independent panel, taking into account several factors including councillors' workloads.
He also says the way the figures are put together are misleading.
Although Nottinghamshire pays the highest allowance of any English County Council, its allowances are the 53rd highest of all councils in the country.
Basic allowances in the county have also been frozen since 2009.
