Part 2: Will it be a case of third time lucky for the Council’s procurement card data?

So first the good news. After eight years and six months the Council have finally published all their procurement card data. This has been a statutory requirement since Oct 2014, but the Council decided to publish some of this data for the first time in July 2022, and when they did they ballsed it up 2022. 

Now, in June 2023, all the data is now available. What we fail to understand is why the Council made work for themselves when this really wasn’t necessary. Are they masochists?

That aside, we recently wrote about the integrity of the Council’s Procurement card data, and whether or not it can be trusted. 

We made it clear that we did not believe the Council’s Governance Law & Regulatory Services department had spent £2,265 on “clearing blocked drains“. 

They data has now been “amended” the data and the “error” erased from the data. The reason a Cllr has given for the “error” was:

“the description [Clearing blocked drains] should have been (and is now) “Election Expenses Recoverable”. The codes are 2917 and 2914 respectively in the system they come from for those that care about that sort of thing!”

So now we have two versions of data, the original as published and a revised data set for Feb 2023.

The first data was published as showing “clearing blocked drains” as the description.

Original Procurement_Card data as published for_Feb_2023

and the second attempt now shows the description as “Election Expenses Recoverable”

Revised Procurement_Card data as later published for_Feb 2023

However, as much as the change to the data set is welcome (and it is), the Council have committed another error. The statutory rules around the data the Council must publish, are set out in The Transparency Code 2015.

Now if one reads Para 23 and 24 of the Code, it states:

Timeliness and errors

23.Data should be as accurate as possible at first publication. While errors may occur, the publication of information should not be unduly delayed to rectify mistakes. This concerns errors in data accuracy. The best way to achieve this is by having robust information management processes in place.

24. Where errors in data are discovered, or files are changed for other reasons (such as omissions), local authorities should publish revised information making it clear where and how there has been an amendment. Metadata on data.gov.uk should be amended
accordingly.

It’s clear Folkestone & Hythe District Council have not abided by the wording of Para 24, and as such this is they have not complied with the requirements of the Code.

What they’ve done is just hidden the fact they made a mistake first time around.  The code is clear and they should abide by it, but as we said this is Folkestone & Hythe District Council, who will make up their own rules, even though the Code is statutory.

Let’s hope it’ll be third time lucky, as the data needs amending yet again, so as to abide by their statutory duty, otherwise they’ll be feeding residents misinformation, much like Boris or Donald Trump. 

The Shepway Vox Team

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