Council Spending
Case reference FOI2026/01166
Received 21 May 2026
Published 8 June 2026
Request
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I would like to request the previous three years of receipts, or proof in pounds, showing where council tax funding is being spent.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am seeking the recorded information held by the Council showing itemised expenditure for the last three financial years, preferably in spreadsheet form. This should include, where held:
* date of payment or transaction;
* supplier/payee;
* amount paid;
* VAT where recorded;
* service area, cost centre or department;
* description or purpose of spend;
* invoice, receipt, purchase order or payment reference, where disclosable;
* whether the expenditure relates to general fund/council tax funded services, or any other relevant funding source classification held by the Council.
If the Council considers that some of this information is already published, please identify the exact documents or datasets which correspond to the information requested, not merely a general webpage.
Please also confirm whether those published datasets cover all itemised expenditure for the previous three years or only a subset, for example payments over £500.
If the Council does not hold “receipts” in the literal form requested, please interpret the request as covering the closest equivalent recorded information held by the Council, such as invoices, payment ledgers, purchase card records, transaction-level expenditure reports, supplier payment spreadsheets, or other spend data held by the Council.
If the Council is refusing any part of the request, please issue a proper refusal notice specifying the relevant exemption or exception relied upon, and explain how it applies.
If the Council considers the request too broad or likely to exceed the cost limit, please provide advice and assistance on how the request can be refined, for example by limiting it to spending over a certain threshold, a particular fund, or particular service areas.
In particular, please confirm:
1. Whether the Council holds itemised transaction-level expenditure data for the last three financial years.
* date of payment or transaction;
* supplier/payee;
* amount paid;
* VAT where recorded;
* service area, cost centre or department;
* description or purpose of spend;
* invoice, receipt, purchase order or payment reference, where disclosable;
* whether the expenditure relates to general fund/council tax funded services, or any other relevant funding source classification held by the Council.
2. Whether the Council holds copies of invoices, receipts, purchase card statements or similar records supporting that expenditure.
3. Whether the Council holds data for payments below £500, given that published transparency data may only cover payments over £500.
4. What information, if any, is being withheld, and under which provision of FOIA or the EIR.
5. Whether the spending information provided online is intended to be relied upon as a complete answer to my request, and if so, where exactly the itemised records for each of the last three years can be accessed.
Response
Please find the answers to your queries below:
Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.
I would like to request the previous three years of receipts, or proof in pounds, showing where council tax funding is being spent.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am seeking the recorded information held by the Council showing itemised expenditure for the last three financial years, preferably in spreadsheet form. This should include, where held:
* date of payment or transaction;
* supplier/payee;
* amount paid;
* VAT where recorded;
* service area, cost centre or department;
* description or purpose of spend;
* invoice, receipt, purchase order or payment reference, where disclosable;
* whether the expenditure relates to general fund/council tax funded services, or any other relevant funding source classification held by the Council.
If the Council considers that some of this information is already published, please identify the exact documents or datasets which correspond to the information requested, not merely a general webpage.
Please also confirm whether those published datasets cover all itemised expenditure for the previous three years or only a subset, for example payments over £500.
If the Council does not hold “receipts” in the literal form requested, please interpret the request as covering the closest equivalent recorded information held by the Council, such as invoices, payment ledgers, purchase card records, transaction-level expenditure reports, supplier payment spreadsheets, or other spend data held by the Council.
If the Council is refusing any part of the request, please issue a proper refusal notice specifying the relevant exemption or exception relied upon, and explain how it applies.
If the Council considers the request too broad or likely to exceed the cost limit, please provide advice and assistance on how the request can be refined, for example by limiting it to spending over a certain threshold, a particular fund, or particular service areas.
In particular, please confirm:
1. Whether the Council holds itemised transaction-level expenditure data for the last three financial years.
Yes, I can confirm that we hold itemised transaction-level expenditure data, for the period 1st April 2019 to 31st March 2026 (to cover the financial years 2019/20 to 2025/26) – this data is publicly available on our website and can be found via the following link:
https://www.guildford.gov.uk/article/25083/Annual-spending-data
Information relating to Quarter 1 of the 2026/27 financial year (i.e. for 1st April 2026 to 30th June 2026) will be published to the above link in the near future.
As such, the information you require can be found from publicly available sources and consequentially under Section 21 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible.
* date of payment or transaction – please find this information at Column E of each ‘spending data’ spreadsheet.
* supplier/payee – please find this information listed within each ‘spending data’ spreadsheet in the column titled ‘supplier_name’.
* amount paid – please find this information listed within each ‘spending data’ spreadsheet in the column titled ‘net_amount’ (please note that this refers to £).
* VAT where recorded – unfortunately, our system does not store the gross invoice amount and therefore we do not hold this information.
* service area, cost centre or department – please find this information within each ‘spending data’ spreadsheet, in the various columns titled ‘service_responsible’ / ‘cost_centre_desc’ / ‘SeRCOP_division_description’ and ‘SeRCOP_major_service_description’.
* description or purpose of spend – please find this information within each ‘spending data’ spreadsheet, in the various columns titled ‘purpose_of_spend’ and ‘account_desc’.
* invoice, receipt, purchase order or payment reference, where disclosable – please find this information within each ‘spending data’ spreadsheet, in the various columns titled ‘cost_centre_code’, ‘transaction_ref’ and ‘supplier_invoice_reference’.
* whether the expenditure relates to general fund/council tax funded services, or any other relevant funding source classification held by the Council.
Please note that Council expenditure is paid for by the General Fund, which is financed partly by Council Tax as well as by other income streams and we do not ringfence Council Tax income. Balances are held with all other Council cash balances & managed as part of the Council’s overall treasury management activities.
Therefore, Council Tax income contributes to funding this expenditure along with other income sources and as such we do not hold data on the actual proportion of Council Tax revenue used for any specific expenditures. As such we do not hold information regarding the proportion of Council Tax revenues used towards day-to-day Council expenditure.
2. Whether the Council holds copies of invoices, receipts, purchase card statements or similar records supporting that expenditure.
Yes, invoices and purchase order details are retained to support expenditure as this information is required for financial audit purposes.
3. Whether the Council holds data for payments below £500, given that published transparency data may only cover payments over £500.
We hold data for payments below £500.
4. What information, if any, is being withheld, and under which provision of FOIA or the EIR.
Please note that our system does not have the functionality to create a report detailing expenditure under the limit of £250 and due to limitations in our software it would take us over 18 hours to obtain this data, which would place a substantial and possibly unreasonable burden on resources. A request for expenditure data below £250 would therefore be exempt under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act (where the cost of compliance exceeds the appropriate limit).
5. Whether the spending information provided online is intended to be relied upon as a complete answer to my request, and if so, where exactly the itemised records for each of the last three years can be accessed.
Additional data regarding Council cash flow, expenditure and funding analysis, comprehensive income and expenditure statements, other operating expenditure, reserves, creditors and debtors etc can be found in our annual statement of accounts. These are available on our website, for the financial years 2010/11 through to 2024/25, via the following link:
https://www.guildford.gov.uk/statementofaccounts
As such, the information you require can be found from publicly available sources and consequentially under Section 21 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible.
Yours sincerely,
FOI Team
Guildford Borough Council
Documents
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