Tracking taxpayers’ cash

A long, long time ago, when it was still quite unlikely that the Conservatives would form the next government, George Osborne made a promise that, at the time, I thought he’d come to regret. He said a Tory administration would publish online every item of government expenditure over £25,000 – an idea from the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Even they, I suspect, couldn’t quite believe Osborne had taken such a low threshold rather than, say, £50k.

Is this really doable? Well, a CoffeeHouser recently got in touch about this fantastic site from Missouri, where Missourians can track what their tax dollars are being spent on. This kind of accountability will have a transformitive effect on public spending. Osborne will be under massive pressure by the civil service to “bring it in over five years” or something similar. I’ll judge the speed by which this is rolled out as a signal of the firmness of Osborne’s intent.