How to Find Your Council’s Top 20 Suppliers, Then Check What They’re Paid For (and whether it worked)

Ever had that nagging thought when you hit a pothole, wait weeks for a repair, or watch your high street empty out, “Where’s all the money going?” Council spending can feel like a locked cupboard with a flimsy label on the front.

The good news is you don’t need inside contacts to get answers. With a laptop and a bit of patience, you can build a clear picture of your council top suppliers, what they’re being paid, and what residents actually got in return. This is exactly the kind of practical, local accountability Durham needs if we’re serious about cutting waste and getting basics right.

Where to find payments data (and what it can, and can’t, tell you)

As of January 2026, most UK councils publish lists of payments to suppliers for transparency. In many places, the common threshold is spending over £500, although some councils publish more detail (or use different cut-offs). This is often called “spend over £500”, “payments to suppliers”, or “transparency data”.

Start with three places:

1) Your council website (best place to begin)
Look for sections like “Open data”, “Transparency”, “Finance”, “Spending”, or “Payments to suppliers”. Downloads are usually CSV, Excel, or PDF, sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly. The file names can be dull, but they’re gold once opened.

2) A national data hub
Some councils also publish datasets through Council spending datasets on data.gov.uk. If your council’s website is hard to search, this is a good back-up route.

3) Local open data portals (if your council has one)
A handful of councils make this far easier with search, filters, and exports, like Birmingham’s payments to suppliers dataset. Even if you’re not in Birmingham, it’s useful to see what “good” looks like.

A quick warning: payments files often show who was paid and how much, but not always why in plain English. Descriptions can be vague (“services”, “professional fees”), and some data is removed for privacy or safeguarding. Still, you can get a lot further than most people expect, especially when you combine payments with contracts and performance info.

Turn raw spending into a “top 20 suppliers” list you can trust

Once you’ve downloaded a few months (or a full financial year), you can turn a messy file into a clean “top 20” view in about 15 minutes. Use Excel, Google Sheets, or LibreOffice.

Here’s a simple method that works well:

1. Put everything in one sheet: If you have multiple months, copy them into a single table. Add a column for “Month” if it helps.
2. Check the numbers: Are amounts shown including VAT, excluding VAT, or mixed? Many councils publish gross amounts, so treat the figures as “what left the account” rather than “supplier profit”.
3. Standardise supplier names: The same supplier can appear under slightly different names (Ltd vs Limited, commas, spelling). If you don’t tidy this, your top 20 list will be wrong.
4. Remove obvious non-supplier items: Refunds, internal transfers, or one-off accounting journals can distort rankings. Don’t hide them, just label them so you know what you’re looking at.
5. Build a pivot table (or summary): Group by supplier name, sum the amounts, sort highest to lowest.
6. Take the top 20 and sanity-check: Does it “look like” your area? Social care, highways, waste, energy, agency staffing, IT, and property often dominate.

If you want context for what councils buy and how big procurement is across government, the House of Commons Library guide to procurement statistics is a helpful reference point.

A practical tip: don’t assume the biggest supplier is “bad”. Big spending can be normal in high-cost areas like adult social care placements. The point is to ask better questions, not to jump to conclusions.

This is also where local politics matters. When residents talk about slashing council waste, stopping rip-off contractor charges, and getting value for money, a top 20 list gives you something solid to argue about, not just slogans.

Check what they were paid for, then test whether it worked

A top 20 list is only step one. The next step is to translate payments into plain language: what did the council buy, what was promised, and did it deliver?

Start with the simplest match-ups:

Match payment lines to service areas
Many datasets include cost centres, service codes, or descriptions. Even a rough label like “highways maintenance” or “temporary staff” points you towards the right department and committee papers.

Find the contract, not just the payment
Big, repeated payments usually tie back to a contract. Your council may have a “contracts register” listing supplier name, contract value, start and end dates, and what it covers. If you can’t find it, ask for it.

Use three basic “did it work?” tests
Think of this like checking a receipt against what turned up in the shopping bag.

• Output test: Was the thing actually delivered? If it’s pothole repairs, how many were fixed, on which roads, and how quickly?
• Quality test: Did it last? A cheap fix that fails in weeks is a false economy.
• Outcome test: Did it change anything residents feel? For example, a roads contract should reduce repeat defects, not just produce paperwork.

Look for performance reports and scrutiny minutes
Councils often publish reports for cabinet, committees, and scrutiny panels. This is where missed targets, contract variations, and complaints sometimes surface.

If the public info is thin, request it
When details are missing, a Freedom of Information request can fill gaps. Many people use WhatDoTheyKnow to make FOI requests because it keeps a public record and makes follow-ups easier.

There’s a reason people find procurement hard to see clearly. The Information Commissioner has previously highlighted gaps in how public contracting information is shared, and why it can be hard for the public to join up the dots, as discussed in research on the transparency gap in public procurement.

Finally, connect the dots back to household pressure. If you spot big spending tied to energy, buildings, or fleets, ask what’s driving cost and what choices exist. Reform UK’s position is that scrapping energy levies and Net Zero costs could cut bills by around £500 per household each year, and that using domestic oil and gas can ease the cost-of-living squeeze. Whether you agree or not, supplier spend is where policy stops being theory and starts showing up as invoices.

Conclusion: turn frustration into proof, then into change

Finding your council top suppliers and checking results isn’t “anorak” work, it’s how residents protect their own money. Once you can name the biggest suppliers, what they’re paid for, and whether it delivered, you’re no longer guessing.

If you want a Durham where decisions are explained, waste is cut, and services work, it starts with asking for evidence and refusing to accept foggy answers. Join Reform UK, hold local power to account, and when the time comes, Vote Reform UK to help Make Britain Great Again through honest spending and real-world results.