Calls for data improvement
Author: Local Government Chronicle - Mar 5, 2010
The Audit Commission has called on councils to radically improve their provision of information to boost local democracy and clamp down on fraud, corruption and waste.
In a discussion paper published on 5 March, The truth is out there, the commission said the public needed to be given clearer information on how councillors arrived at their decisions and how their taxes were spent.
The paper called for the creation of more imaginative information strategies, including using ‘smartphone’ applications and social networking sites, to enhance the democratic process in the wake of scandals such as the row over MPs’ expenses.
However, the usefulness of data currently put into the public domain was called into question.
According to surveys carried out by the commission, the majority of councils only meet the basic requirements on data quality. In 2008 just 5% of local authorities were found to be producing "excellent data quality".
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