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HAVE YOU EVER wondered what your local council spends its cash on? A new app is here to show you just that.
Not only can you check exactly where the money is going, you can also see how your local authority spends its budget compared to the national average and against other councils.
The public policy app also has a section “Where did the money come from?” which goes through the income sources for local authorities.
Taking Dublin City as an example, the app shows the councils budget in percentages and then gives information on each section.
The aim of the app is to inform voters about what local government actually does in advance of the upcoming elections.
The app also allows users to compare councils.
For example here the app compares how Dublin City and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown councils spend their budgets. It’s broken into sections that can be checked individually.
Looking at Cork as an example of checking income sources, the app can be used to show what makes up the councils budget.
Economist and researcher with Public Policy.ie Cormac O’Sullivan said,
This will be the first local election since the introduction of the Local Property Tax which Councils can raise or lower by up to 15 per cent and the public are understandably curious about the services provided by their Local Authorities.
“For most people, this is the first time they will be faced with the tradeoff between providing more local services at the cost of higher taxation, or reducing their tax bill at the cost of cutting services”.
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Great. Can it tell us how much was written off for developers in unpaid development levies?
You need the NAMA app for that.
Are we calling websites apps now?
Looks like it, good facility all the same
No donations to quangoes segment? DCC is big into that.
What’s the name of the app ffs
Generic smart ass comment….
It might just be Public Policy App Paul but it only tells you how much was spent on the different divisions overall. It does not say what went on councilor’s “expenses or “consultants in relation these areas. For example Social Housing and Administration Development for DCC = € 86.97 Million of which 8% was used to fly off to countries where there is no social housing to see how they get on. 4% on The Social Housing and Administration Development 4 day seminar (somewhere nice in Ireland). 2.76% on inter agency meetings to see where social housing will be developed “going forward” 11% on facilitating the committee for Social Housing and Administration Development, 8.3% on administrative charges. 6.33% on consultancy fees to the various relations of the board who might know someone who needs social housing. 4.91% to send a delegation to Brazil to see how Social Housing works during the 2014 World Cup. 4.19% on revisiting Rio to witness the effects of the 2014 World Cup on Social housing there and 50.51% on Social Housing and Administration Development. Of course I could be wrong but an app like that would be informative.
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