Islington Council ‘sorry’ after failing to publish register of large payments since end of 2017

Islington Town Hall. Photograph: Islington Council

Islington Council has apologised after failing to update its online register of large payments since the end of 2017.

Local authorities are meant to publish any payments they make of over £500 at least every financial quarter.

But Islington Council’s online register has not been updated since December 2017, with the first financial quarter of 2018 – covering January, February and March – still missing as of the middle of May.

When asked about this by the Islington Citizen, the council apologised for the delay, which it said was caused by a lack of staff, and said the payments would be published next week.

An Islington Council spokesperson said: “There has been a delay in publishing the council’s spending data for Q1 [Quarter 1] as the team responsible is currently understaffed.

“We will publish the data by the end of next week and apologise for any inconvenience caused by the delay.”

Cllr Caroline Russell, of the Green Party, told the Citizen that the council should have published the payments before the local elections.

She said: “If they are committed to transparency in their governance of the council then getting this information into the public domain on time and not missing their deadline should be a priority, and clearly it isn’t.”