Transparency Code Part 3

Posted : Blog Post : 27.01.2020 - North West Open Data

This post summarises the second section of the Department for Communities and Local Government Local Government Transparency Code 2015. The document is split into 3 parts with 3 related Annexes

  • Part 1 Introduction, which sets out the context of the document, government postion, basic principles and aims, scope, legal context, a clarification of “commercial confidentiality” and exemptions, the timeliness of reporting and handling errors and finally details of further information and support (Paragraphs 1-25)

  • Part 2 Information that must be published, this sets out reports to be produced quarterly, anually and reports that only need to be produced once. High level descriptions of reports is provided and methods of publication specified(Paragraphs 26-55)

  • Part 3 Information recommended for publication, this section sets out that Part 2 defines the minimum data that local authorities must produce and then sets out aspirations for publication and proposes a 1-5 star rating system and a statement that the government expects 3 star quality within 6 months of the Code being issued. (Paragraphs 56-70)

1. Part 3 : Aspirations

Part II sets out the minimum standards, Part III sets out aspirations

The Government believes that in principle all data held and managed by local authorities should be made available to local people unless there are specific sensitivities to doing so. Therefore, it encourages local authorities to go much further in publishing the data they hold, recognising the benefits of sharing that data for local people, more effective service delivery and better policy making. Part 3 of this Code sets out details of data that the Government recommends local authorities publish.

— Part 3
Section 56
Table 1. Transparency Code Aspirations
Report Frequency Aspiration

Expenditure exceeding £500

Quarterly

monthly over £250, all corporate credit & charge cards, total amount spent on remunerations, classify expenditure using Chartered Institute of Public Accountancy Service Reporting Code of Practice to enable comparability between authorities.

Government Procurement Card Transactions

Quarterly

a/a

Procurement information

Quarterly

Information to be published on Contracts Finder as well as any local portal. Report to be published monthly or even real time, threshold value to be reduced to £500, invitations to quote where no formal tender, company numbers, upcoming tenders/quotes next 12 months, geographical detail, by ward, detail performance by KPI, more detail on voluntary/community category

Local authority land

Yearly

monthly or real time and should publish on e-PIMS. 8 further enhancements are suggested, eg size, services, reason for holding etc

Social housing asset value

Yearly

-

Grants to voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations

Yearly

monthly, real time, more detail on voluntary/community category

Organisation chart

Yearly

all employees whose salary > £50000, salary band, information about current, future vacant posts,

Trade union facility time

Yearly

-

Parking account

Yearly

-

Parking spaces

Yearly

free spaces in authority area, charged parking spaces provided by authority

Senior salaries

Yearly

-

Constitution

Yearly

-

Pay multiple

Yearly

-

Fraud

Yearly

total investigated, total fraud identified, total monetary value detected and recovered

Waste contracts

Only Once

-

A five step journey to fully open format

  • One star – Available on the web (whatever format) but with an open license

  • Two star – As for one star plus available as machine-readable structured data (eg.Excel instead of an image scan of a table)

  • Three star – As for two star plus use a non-proprietary format (eg.CSV and XML)

  • Four star – All of the above plus use open standards from the World Wide Web Consortium (such as RDF and SPARLQL21)

  • Five star – All the above plus links an organisation’s data to others’ data to provide context

The Code was written by Shehla Husain and dated 27th February 2015

2. References