New unitary councils breach government’s transparency code

They've missed the deadline of when to publish all the spending over £500

By Sarah Ward

Both new unitary councils have breached the government’s transparency code by failing to declare their spending over £500 in time.

The two new unitary councils providing public services in Northamptonshire have breached the government’s transparency code by failing to publish their financial spend on time.

The deadline for the authorities making known what they have been spending taxpayer cash on was July 31 but six weeks later North Northamptonshire Councils has still not published its spending data and West Northamptonshire Council only published its figures last Thursday.

Publishing the data of which businesses and individuals local authorities spend their money on is a legal requirement under the Local Government Transparency Code 2015 and the government says councils must do it in order to ‘increase democratic accountability’.

It says:

"This Code is issued to meet the Government’s desire to place more power into citizens’ hands to increase democratic accountability and m…