Lack of transparency threatens Localism agenda before it's even begun

The coalition's localism bill is designed to shift power from central government to local government, and to remove local government regulation to make those institutions more flexible and responsive to local people's needs. This will allow them to 'genuinely lead their communities'.

The DCLG business plan, published in November, makes it clear that this seismic shift in the structure of British government will only be successful if local government is compelled to change: it needs to become more accountable, transparent, and democratic. One of the simplest and most necessary changes is that all local government bodies be forced to publish all spending information. If this is not done local citizens cannot make informed decisions.

Publishing data needs to become the norm for councils. Currently, councils' default setting is to look to see what data they have to publish. They need to completely change their perspective and publish everything unless they are legally required not to. The figures out today showing that over half of Britain's councils have not published their data with only a month to go before the deadline are worrying.

Eric Pickles has criticised councils who have not yet published their data and asked what they are hiding, but he has not acted to legally compel them to publish their data. If localism is to work we cannot wait for the culture of secrecy to change over time. We need a rapid change and that can only be brought about by the creation of a legal imperative to publish all local spending data. Localism hasn't even begun and already there is a serious threat to one of the most important measures needed to make it a success.