The BBC this week published the results of its research into local council spending for the coming year, but claimed that a similar survey pursued by the Local Government Chronicle was blocked by the government.
Outlining the BBC's research, which resulted in obtaining data from 268 of the 352 authorities in England, freedom of information specialist Martin Rosenbaum said some councils were "much more willing to co-operate than others".
"The initial requests were not made as freedom of information applications, but in some cases it proved necessary to submit formal FOI requests to obtain data from councils which otherwise would not reply."
More than 80 authorities failed to respond by the deadline, according to Rosenbaum.
"The BBC's attempts to collate this spending data largely avoided some obstacles placed in the way of alternative research being carried out by other media," he said.
This referred to attempts by the Local Government Chronicle seeking what the BBC claimed to be Revenue Account information, submitted by local authorities to the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Following the Chronicle's Freedom of Information requests to councils for the data, the DCLG instructed the authorities to not release it "on the grounds that it is intended for future publication by the Office for National Statistics", Rosenbaum reported.
A spokesperson for Department for Communities and Local Government said "it is absolutely not the case" that it attempted to block surveys on local government spending information.
"The government has a legal obligation to ensure that statistical data is accurate and does not have mistakes. It is in the public interest not to disclose this information ahead of planned publication because of the need to quality assure the data and it is for that reason that the request was made of councils.
"The government is committed to transparency and have in fact been encouraging councils to publish spending data over £500 online. We will be publishing all the council expenditure information online as soon as possible."
Deputy editor of news at the Chronicle Daniel Drillsma-Milgrom told Journalism.co.uk that each council publishes data in its own way, but the information he was after was in a comparable format.
"After it was refused I was planning on creating my own form which they could add the data to, which is all publicly available, but in a format that allowed comparison.
"But the DCLG said they were planning on publishing it anyway in June. So now we're just waiting."
The BBC said it managed to secure the data by collecting figures from each authority under headings from a system called SeRCOP, a breakdown of local authority expenditure from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.
According to the broadcaster the Revenue Account information targeted by the Chronicle are figures based on SeRCOP data.
"The BBC has seen a copy of an email circulated to councils by DCLG's Revenue Statistics Branch, which told councils to refuse the LGC's information request in rather fierce terms," Rosenbaum said.
"... Possibly that attitude doesn't really fit with the spirit of openness that is meant to infuse the public sector these days."
Free daily newsletter
If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).
