Spikes Cavell: Transparent Councils

?Providing Understandable Information to Aid Public Accountability?

Author: Luke Spikes, CEO, Spikes Cavell   |   12/07/2010

“Local people should be able to hold politicians and public bodies to account over how their hard earned cash is being spent and decisions made on their behalf. They can only do that effectively if they have the information they need at their fingertips.”

This is what Eric Pickles recently announced in a letter setting out proposals for a more open local government.

Localis has long argued that, to fully engage citizens, government must fully disclose its spending and costs, in order to help the public set out their priorities and ensure that public spending reflects value-for-money in terms of local demand.

However, while publishing reams of information may technically met the requirements of open government, it may be unintelligible to the local population if emphasis is not placed on what individuals and community organisations want to know.

To ensure that publicly available information is manageable by local residents and community groups, local authority financial information must be presented in a way that is clear, comparable, and relevant to local concerns.

Spikes Cavell has created a platform which allows data to be published on-line in a clear, standardised and comparable format, at minimal expense to public bodies.

Transparency is the first step in bringing citizens into the decision-making process, it is crucial that local authorities ensures information fits around the citizen, to create informed consumers of public services. Spikes Cavell could help revolutionise the way local residents hold their councils to account.