Council Invoices to be published online (23rd March)

At today’s Full Council meeting Members endorsed a call from Tim Hall, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, to make the financial affairs of the County Council more open and transparent.

“Publishing our invoices online so that our residents and businesses can see how their money is spent is a common sense move that is increasingly becoming the norm. Conservative councils like Windsor & Maidenhead have shown that this can be done, and we hope that this will help our residents to understand how Council finances work.

Openness and transparency are not just increasingly popular buzzwords in local government, but they are the best ways of ensuring the politicians can reconnect with the public following the Westminster expenses saga and the suspension from the Parliamentary Labour Party of ex-Ministers over claims they were prepared to influence policy for cash”.

Bill Barker, who is vice-Chairman of the Council’s Audit & Governance Committee, added, “this is a move that all sensible people should support. Local authorities should not be afraid of opening themselves up and saying to the public ‘this is how your money is spent’. Taxpayers have a right to know what we do with their taxes”.

Denise Le Gal, who sits on the Council’s Corporate Management Select Committee, seconded Cllr. Hall’s motion: “when these invoices start to be published I would urge people to go online and look at them. We want to encourage people to gain a greater understanding of local authority finances, and I’m sure that when they do they’ll see that Surrey County Council’s Conservative Group are determined to spend every penny wisely”.