The national coalition government has told local authorities that they must publish and itemise all spend of £500 or more every month and top council salaries.

To see Southwark’s spend visit: http://www.southwark.gov.uk/opendata

Sadly the data is only presented as a bland pdf document so you can’t see what was bought or by whom in the council or whether it was one or more transactions. It should be realitvely easy to allow direct access via a guest portal to SAP which sits behind this or to post an excel spreadsheet to view. Perhaps that’s a little more open than council officers are ready for.

But of similar interest is all incomes outside of Council Tax and National Non Domestic Rates (business rates). I’ll be asking when income data for the council can also be posted.