Councils have been urged to continue supporting 'armchair auditors' keep check on local authority spending once the national watchdog is disbanded.
The Audit Commission today launched its final update to provide members of the public with information on billions of pounds of town hall spending.
This marks the final update for the Financial Ratios tool before the Commission is closed in March and auditors have called on local authorities to compile their own financial ratios data to support members of the community to better investigate public bodies.
Chairman of the Audit Commission, Jeremy Newman, said :'The Financial Ratios tool is an excellent example of how the Audit Commission assists in providing transparency in local government financial management, thereby helping the electorate keep check on the billions spent in local government every year.
'With the closure of the Commission and inevitably the Financial Ratios tool with it, I very much hope that someone will continue this work.'
Newman said that he had invited the Local Government Association (LGA) to incorporate the ratios and data in its publicly available benchmarking service.
'This would enable local public bodies to compile their own accounts data in future to support continued comparison of the financial ratios in the years ahead,' he added.
'For the Government to achieve its aims of promoting greater transparency for public finances, and greater accountability to local taxpayers, there remains a need for tools, like the Financial Ratios tool, that make access to data easier and support "armchair auditors" to make informed comparisons between organisations.'
In response, an LGA spokesman said: 'We have agreed with the Audit Commission that we are happy to consider using LG Inform for this purpose.'
'Further financial data is due to be included on LG Inform and, if councils find financial ratios helpful, that is one thing we will look to include.'
