Strengthen local spending reports — rejected — 28 Oct 2009 at 15:47

The majority of MPs voted against the motion:^[1]

• This House
• welcomes the provisions of the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 requiring the publication of local spending reports;
• believes that people have a right to know how their money is spent by public bodies;
• especially welcomes the assurances given by the then Minister for Local Government, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth, that the local spending reports would include all public agencies;
• further welcomes the Minister's assurance that the purpose was to achieve a report that identified how much would be spent in each area by the authorities;
• is therefore very concerned by the limited information available in the local spending reports produced by the Department for Communities and Local Government;
• believes them to be a contravention of the expressed assurances of the Minister; and
• calls for proper local spending reports to be published, which will give effect to those assurances.

In its place, an alternative motion was proposed:^[2]

• This House
• recognises the role of strong, accountable local government in delivering high quality local services and entitlements to services whilst ensuring value for money;
• welcomes Government investment, through local councils, in providing real help now to families;
• reiterates the importance of providing information about local spending and service quality to ensuring effective scrutiny and value for money;
• further welcomes the passage of the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 and the Government's commitment to work with the Selector on its implementation, and believes that the first local spending reports published in April 2009 marked an important initial step in making local public spending more transparent;
• further welcomes responses to the consultation confirming the desire to see more data published; welcomes the Government's intention to extend local spending reports to cover all local public spending which can be readily provided in this format at reasonable cost;
• further welcomes the Government's proposals to extend local authorities' scrutiny of all local public service spending in their area;
• further welcomes the Total Place pilots mapping in detail all public spending in key services in 13 areas;
• further welcomes Sir Tim Berners-Lee's work advising Government on how best to make non-personal public data as widely available as possible;
• believes that these developments will enhance the Government's ability to provide local spending information in the most effective manner; and
• asks Ministers to report back to the House before the end of December 2009 on the next stages in developing local spending reports.

which passed without a further vote.

• [1] Caroline Spelman MP (Conservative), House of Commons, 28 October 2009
• [2] John Denham (Labour), House of Commons, 28 October 2009

Debate in Parliament | Source |