DFID spend

In line with UK Government commitments to increase transparency, we are now publishing details of spend over £25,000 since 12 May 2010 and over £500 from 1 April 2011. We will continue to publish this data on a monthly basis. Our data is published in two file formats:

csv - comma-separated values format most suited to machine or text readers
xls - Microsoft Excel - most widely used spreadsheet program.

Data published is in the format set out by HM Treasury and consists of:

departmental family – the parent department
entity – the entity to which the transaction relates (in this case always DFID)
date – transaction date as recorded in financial system
expense type – nature of expenditure made
expense area – division within the organisation where the expenditure occurred
supplier – name of recipient as recorded in financial system
transaction no – system generated reference number
amount in sterling – invoice amount including irrecoverable VAT and excluding recoverable VAT.

Security and scope

Publication includes all spend which, in compliance with HM Treasury guidance, does not compromise national or personal security, foreign relations or legal obligations under acts such as the Data Protection Act.

All transactions for Afghanistan are currently excluded pending further discussions with our suppliers over security concerns.

Credit notes and transactions with other government departments are within scope of publication. Income is excluded.

Transactions are published as they originally appear in the financial system and do not include subsequent corrective journals.

Some payments to suppliers which are over £25,000 in total actually consist of several smaller value items allocated to different account codes (expense types) or business areas (expense areas). In these instances the smaller values are shown individually and together make up the overall payment to the supplier. This results in a higher volume of transaction lines than payments to suppliers.

Travel

DFID expenditure made via the central travel provider (Hogg Robinson Group) and via procurement cards (Natwest Commercial Card Division) has been broken down into expense area and expense type charged rather than the single payment which is made to the supplier.

Payments are made to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) through the “post account” system, where FCO provides DFID with an accounts payable service in some locations overseas and recharges the expenditure to DFID.

These payments are broken into each location charged rather than the single payment made to FCO.

Crown Agents

In some instances DFID uses The Crown Agents as a procurement agent to source and purchase cost effective goods and services.

Crown Agents Bank provides management, payment and reporting services to DFID and partner governments in relation to Financial Aid grants. In these instances The Crown Agents will also be listed as the supplier.

Enquiries should be directed to the Public Enquiry Point at enquiry@dfid.gov.uk

Media enquiries please contact us on:

Tel: 020 7023 0600
Email: pressoffice@dfid.gov.uk

Last updated: 04 Sep 2012

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