All spending over £500 published by Mansfield council

Mansfield District Council has started publishing details of all its spending with external suppliers over £500.

The documents are being made available on the the council's website.

Spends over £500 from 1 April and 31 December 2010 were published on Monday. Subsequent reports will be published shortly after the end of each month.

The information excludes details of payments to individuals such as benefit payments, council tax refunds and employees' salaries and wages payments.

Councillor Roger Sutcliffe, portfolio holder for resources, said: "The council spends more than £95m a year on providing a complicated mix of important public services, buying goods and services from more than 2,000 suppliers.

"In these tough financial times it is vital that we get as much value for money as possible on everything we spend and that we are open and transparent about our purchases."