9 February 2011
The Government is determined to encourage greater transparency across its operations to enable the public to hold public bodies and politicians to account. This includes commitments relating to public expenditure, intended to help reduce the deficit and achieve better value for money. In September 2010, HM Treasury issued reporting Guidance entitled: "Transparency – publication of spend over £25,000". This guidance applies to all Government departments, NHS bodies and Foundation Trusts.
Click here to view the guidance >>
For the purposes of this guidance, "expenditure" is all individual invoices, grant payments, expense payments or other such transactions that are over £25,000. If possible, each entity should go beyond this £25,000 threshold and publish all expenditure over £500, which is the threshold applied to local authorities from January 2011. If reporting bodies are in a position to do so, they may publish all transactions regardless of size.
The threshold for reporting may be lowered in the future, and entities will want to ensure that any IT or other changes they make now can be easily modified if there is a lower threshold later.
There are some transactions that should not be published. The guidance mentions that salary payments to staff are to be "redacted", which means that such information should not be published. However, there are a number of related publication exemptions which some Trusts may not know about. For instance, the guidance states that the following may also be redacted:
- Pension contributions (excluding service charge) and NI contributions;
- Severance payments;
- Compensation payments;
- Legal settlement payments (a "loose" terms which the guidance does not define).
Trusts may wish to review their data, in particular to ensure that their redaction process is compliant with the guidance and can be justified if challenged.
Hill Dickinson has a wealth of experience in dealing with the full
range of employment and pensions issues. If you have any queries
relating to the above, or any other legal matter, please do not
hesitate to contact us
for advice.
