Newcastle City Council Monthly Payments Over £250

Newcastle City Council publishes monthly lists of all payments exceeding £250, detailing recipients, amounts, and purposes to promote spending transparency. The dataset excludes staff salaries, housing benefits, and sensitive personal information, with some supplier names redacted for data protection. Records from before October 2012 only include payments over £500, indicating a historical policy change.

Use Cases

• Analyzing supplier expenditure patterns based on payment amounts and recipient names.
• Tracking changes in council spending categories over time using the payment descriptions.
• Monitoring compliance with transparency policies for payments above the £250 threshold.
• Identifying redacted payments to infer spending on sensitive areas like adult social care.

Strengths

• Provides a detailed breakdown of council expenditure, including supplier, amount, and purpose for each payment.
• Published monthly with a long time range, likely spanning from before October 2012 to at least 2017.
• Follows specific government guidelines for redacting personal data, ensuring legal compliance.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: column names, row counts, file sizes, and specific license are unknown.
• Update dates conflict between sources (2017 vs. 2026), creating uncertainty about data freshness.
• Excludes significant spending areas like staff payments and housing benefits, limiting comprehensiveness.

Provenance

Source

Newcastle City Council, published via the Government Digital Service.

Collection Method

Monthly administrative reporting of financial transactions.

Time Range

From at least October 2012 (with earlier records using a £500 threshold) onward.

Freshness

Last updated dates conflict: one source states 2017-02-14, another states 2026-04-30.

Geography

Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.