News story

Government spending data published

The government has today published detailed spending data allowing the public to see for the first time how money is spent and hold politicians to account

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

As part of the ongoing drive to make Government more accountable, efficient and transparent than ever before, departments have published details of spending over £25,000 for the last six months.

View the data on the online transparency database

On data.gov.uk a portal has also been set up to give the public and developers easy access to data from all levels of government.

Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude said:

It is our ambition to make the UK the most transparent and accountable Government in the world. I want the public to hold us to account for what we do and by publishing this data today, taxpayers will be able to see exactly how we spend their money. This will not always be easy but we expect the public to hold our feet to the fire and make sure that not a penny of their money is wasted.

We’ve already released a revolutionary amount of data over the last six months, from the salaries of the highest earning civil servants to organisation structure charts which give people a real insight into the workings of Government and is already being used in new and innovative ways.

We recognise that this is a work in progress and some of the data we have released so far is not as detailed or as comprehensive as we would like but we are committed to making information as readily available and easy to use as possible.

Transparency Board Member Sir Tim Berners-Lee said:

The UK is at the forefront of the international drive for openness and transparency and it’s great to see the commitment from the Coalition Government to drive this forward. Releasing data enables inventive people to build innovative new applications and websites which help people in their everyday lives.

It was also announced today that this public expenditure data will be released on a monthly basis from now on.

Today’s announcement follows the publication of departmental business plans earlier this month.

Previous story: Business plans published

Published 19 November 2010