The Transparency Code: what smaller councils must publish

A plain-English guide to the Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities — who it applies to, exactly what a parish council must publish, and when.

The Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities sets out information that town and parish councils with an annual turnover not exceeding £25,000 must publish, so residents can see how public money is spent. Larger councils have their own, broader requirements, but the smaller-authority Code is where most parish councils start.

Who it applies to

The Code applies to smaller authorities — including parish and town councils, internal drainage boards and parish meetings — with annual turnover of £25,000 or less. If your turnover is above that, you fall under wider transparency and accounts-publication rules instead, but the spirit is the same: publish, and publish promptly.

What a smaller council must publish

Under the Code, a qualifying council should publish, at least annually:

All items of expenditure above £100 (date, amount, purpose and recipient);
End-of-year accounts (the receipts-and-payments or income-and-expenditure summary);
The Annual Governance Statement;
The Annual Internal Audit Report;
A list of councillor or member responsibilities;
Details of public land and building assets;
The minutes, agendas and meeting papers of the council.

Agendas should go up before meetings (see the meetings rules), and minutes once approved.

Where to publish it

The Code expects information to be published online in a way that’s free to access — which, for a public body, means a website that also meets the accessibility regulations (WCAG 2.2 AA). Posting a scanned PDF on a hard-to-find page isn’t really the point; the information should be easy to find and use.

Making it painless

The burden isn’t the rules — it’s pulling the figures together each year from spreadsheets and bank statements, then formatting them for the website. When your spending, assets, minutes and governance records already live in one system, the annual publication becomes an export, not a project.

How Town Desk helps

Town Desk keeps the raw material in one place and turns it into something publishable: your spending and asset register export as branded, print-ready PDFs and CSVs in a couple of clicks, and your minutes and governance records live alongside them — so the annual publication becomes an export, not a project. (Town Desk isn’t your accounts package: it records and reports your spend and assets, and sits alongside your bookkeeping software.)

See how it handles finance and governance, or book a demo.

General information for UK town & parish councils, not legal advice. Check the current Transparency Code for Smaller Authorities (published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government / its successor department) for the authoritative list and thresholds.