# Is there an API for UK council spending over £500? > Is there one API for UK council spending over £500 across many councils? Not from government: the [Local Government Transparency Code 2015](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-government-transparency-code-2015/local-government-transparency-code-2015) requires each local authority in England to publish every item of expenditure over £500, so each council publishes its own CSV or spreadsheet files, in its own layout, on its own site or through data.gov.uk. The Olympus UK Council Spending API loads the files of the English councils it covers into one schema: `GET /v1/uk-council-spending/transactions` searches payments by council, supplier name, Companies House number, date and amount, and `GET /v1/uk-council-spending/coverage` lists exactly which councils and months are loaded. ## The official route, and what it lacks Paragraph 28 of the Code says: "Local authorities must publish details of each individual item of expenditure that exceeds £500", with the date, department, beneficiary, purpose, amount, irrecoverable VAT and merchant category, at least quarterly. The duty is on each authority, so: - there is one set of files per council, listed on the council's site or its catalogue entries on data.gov.uk; - column names, date formats, thresholds (some councils publish over £250, or all spend) and VAT treatment differ from council to council; - the data.gov.uk catalogue API finds the files but does not combine them, so totalling a supplier's payments across councils means downloading and mapping each council's files. The Code applies to English local authorities only; Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not covered by it. ## What the UK Council Spending API serves Payments English councils publish under the Local Government Transparency Code (most at over £500; some publish lower thresholds or all spend), as published, in one schema: search by council, supplier, date and amount, with supplier and council totals. ### Limits - Coverage is partial: only councils whose files are discoverable through catalogue APIs, and only the months they have published. - Amounts, dates and VAT treatment are as each council publishes them; there are no common spending categories. - Supplier grouping by normalised name is not identity; payees redacted by the council stay redacted. **Not included:** councils outside the published list; contracts or tenders; purchase card files; grants registers; Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. At launch (October 2026) the API covered 12 English councils, with files from October 2025. Coverage is per council and per month: check `months_missing` before totalling a period, because a missing month is a gap in the data, not a month with no spending. ## Example request and response Payments of £10,000 or more by one council since April 2026: Request: ```sh curl -s "https://api.olympus.new-odyssey.com/v1/uk-council-spending/transactions?council=E08000035&amount_min=10000&date_from=2026-04-01&limit=1" \ -H "X-API-Key: $OLYMPUS_API_KEY" ``` 200 OK (abridged): ```json { "data": [ { "transaction_id": "…", "council_code": "E08000035", "payment_date": "…", "amount": "…", "supplier": { "name": "…", "normalised_name": "…", "supplier_key": "…", "redacted": false, "company_number": "…", "charity_number": null }, "department": "…", "expense_type": "…", "description": "…", "file_period": { "start": "…", "end": "…", "outside_period": false }, "provenance": { "source_url": "…", "source_version": "…" } } ], "meta": { "datasets": [{ "dataset_id": "…", "freshness": "fresh" }], "notices": [{ "code": "as_published", "message": "…" }], "pagination": { "limit": 1, "has_more": true, "next_cursor": "…" } } } ``` `council` is the council's ONS GSS code (here Leeds, `E08000035`); `GET /v1/uk-council-spending/coverage` lists the codes of every council loaded. Amounts are decimal strings in pounds, as published. Filter by `supplier_name` (a name prefix) or `supplier_company_number` to see one supplier's payments across councils, and pass `meta.pagination.next_cursor` back as `cursor` for the next page. ## Coverage and refresh **Coverage:** Only the English councils Olympus has published; GET /v1/uk-council-spending/coverage lists them with the months loaded and missing. - Each council's published spending files from October 2025, as the council publishes them (monthly or quarterly). - Councils are identified by ONS GSS codes; suppliers link to companies only where the file carries a Companies House number. **Refresh:** Weekly (Tuesdays 06:00 America/New_York); unchanged files are not downloaded again. `GET /v1/uk-council-spending/coverage` lists exactly what is loaded right now. ## Price Every Olympus plan includes the UK Council Spending API and every other live API. The Free plan (no card) gives 1,000 requests a month to each live API at 10 requests a minute. Paid plans: Developer $79 a month (50,000 requests per API), Growth $299 a month (250,000 requests per API), Business $999 a month (1,000,000 requests per API); Enterprise from $2,500 a month on request. Prices in USD; see [pricing](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/pricing) for rate limits and what counts as a request. ## Docs - [UK Council Spending API](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/apis/uk-council-spending): what it serves and its endpoints - [API reference](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/docs/uk-council-spending); OpenAPI contract at `/openapi/uk-council-spending.yaml` - [Coverage and known limits](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/coverage#uk-council-spending) - [UK council spending over £500, explained](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/guides/uk-council-spending-over-500) - [Methodology](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/methodology/uk-council-spending) - [Get a free API key](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/signup), then send it in the `X-API-Key` header - From an AI agent: the [MCP server](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/agents) describes this API's coverage with `get_product_coverage`; data calls go through the REST API > Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence, as each council's catalogue entry states. Olympus is not affiliated with or endorsed by any council or the UK government. ## Questions ### Do councils have to publish spending over £500? Local authorities in England do, under the Local Government Transparency Code 2015: every item of expenditure over £500, at least quarterly. ### Is there a single national dataset of council spending? No. Each council publishes its own files. The Olympus API combines the councils it covers into one schema and lists them, with their months, in `GET /v1/uk-council-spending/coverage`. ### Can I find every council's payments to one supplier? Yes, for the councils covered: filter `GET /v1/uk-council-spending/transactions` by `supplier_name` (a name prefix) or `supplier_company_number`, where the council publishes the Companies House number. ### Does it include contracts or purchase cards? No. Contracts and tenders, purchase card files and councils outside England are not included. For contracts, see the [UK public procurement answer](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/answers/find-a-tender-api). ## Sources - GOV.UK: [Local government transparency code 2015](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-government-transparency-code-2015/local-government-transparency-code-2015) - data.gov.uk: [Find open data](https://www.data.gov.uk/) ## Related - [UK Council Spending API](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/apis/uk-council-spending) - [UK Council Spending API reference](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/docs/uk-council-spending) - [UK council spending over £500, explained](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/guides/uk-council-spending-over-500) - [Is there an API for Find a Tender and Contracts Finder?](https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/answers/find-a-tender-api) --- Published 2026-10-24, updated 2026-10-24 by New Odyssey. Canonical: https://olympus.new-odyssey.com/answers/uk-council-spending-api