Ministers have halved local government's spending transparency threshold – from all items worth more than £500 to all transactions above £250 – and warned that authorities which needlessly redact information face future scrutiny.

In an exclusive interview with The MJ this week, local government minister Bob Neill confirmed the DCLG had effectively halved the transparency threshold from this autumn, after councils responded positively to initial changes aimed at boosting spending accountability.

‘We've been operating on a £500 transparency threshold for some time now, and every council in the country, bar Nottingham City Council, has signed up for that.  What we are now proposing to do is go down to £250,' Mr Neill said.

Updated DCLG guidance will shortly ask councils to disclose, on a monthly basis and for public consumption, all transactions of £250 or more – with the exception of commercially-sensitive material.  Ministers will turn into law the default £500 transparency requirement – introduced in 2010 – but have urged councils to begin publishing data according to the desired £250 threshold.

Lowering the disclosure limit represents a minimal change for authorities, Mr Neill added, because the systems for publishing spending data were already in place.

Mr Neill said the Government wished to improve transparency ‘as a matter of principle' across the public sector.  ‘The lower you can get the threshold, the more information is out there for the public,' he said.  ‘As a matter of public right, people should have as much information as possible.'

Ministers have not made a formal announcement over the new and lower non-mandatory threshold – although they wrote to the Local Government Association explaining their proposal some time ago.

LGA chief executive Carolyn Downs let slip the plan at a parliamentary hearing last month, although few senior council officials picked up on the statement.