Data story · Spending and payments
Where does Lichfield District Council’s money go?
Since December 2019 the council has published its payments over £500 every month, one CSV per month. We joined all 83 files into one table. In the six financial years from 2020/21 to 2025/26 it paid £107.1m to 1,107 suppliers, and ten of them received 45% of it.
- £107.1m
- paid in payments over £500, 2020/21 to 2025/26
- 1,107
- suppliers paid in those six years
- 45%
- of the money went to the ten biggest suppliers
- £31.3m
- in 2025/26, the biggest year, against £12.1m in 2021/22
Councils in England publish what they spend under the Local Government Transparency Code. Lichfield District Council does it on its ArcGIS Hub, as a separate file for each month, and the files have changed shape over the years. One table makes the questions easy: how much a year, to whom, and for what.
Spending by financial year
Financial years run April to March. * Part years: 2019/20 (4 months) and 2026/27 (7 months). In 2025/26 the largest areas were Replacement Leisure Centre (£9.4m), Waste Shared Service (£3.9m) and Retained Business Rates (£2.5m).
Every month, December 2019 to October 2026
One bar per monthly file. The biggest month is April 2026, at £5,586,101.
The ten biggest suppliers
2020/21 to 2025/26, with the area most of their payments were booked to.
- STEPNELL LIMITED£10.2m
Replacement Leisure Centre · 16 payment lines
- LWM TRADED SERVICES LTD£9.4m
Accessible Homes (Disabled Facilities Grants) · 155 payment lines
- CANNOCK CHASE DISTRICT COUNCIL£8.9m
Retained Business Rates · 17 payment lines
- BIFFA WASTE SERVICES LTD£3.8m
Waste Shared Service · 115 payment lines
- SPECIALIST FLEET SERVICES LTD (FLEET HIRE)£3.6m
Waste Shared Service · 83 payment lines
- ZURICH INSURANCE PLC.£2.8m
Insurance Administration · 99 payment lines
- THE BEST CONNECTION£2.8m
Waste Shared Service · 929 payment lines
- STAFFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL£2.7m
Trade Waste Collection · 436 payment lines
- STAFFORDSHIRE PENSION FUND£2.3m
Corporate Costs - Non Distributable Costs · 20 payment lines
- RIVERSIDE TRUCK RENTAL LTD TA NRG RIVERSIDE£2.1m
Waste Shared Service · 399 payment lines
What it was for
By expense type, 2020/21 to 2025/26.
- Supplies & Services£48.0m (45%)
- Capital Expenditure£28.3m (26%)
- Transport£10.9m (10%)
- Employees£10.6m (10%)
- Third Party£6.0m (6%)
- Premises£3.2m (3%)
- Central Support Services£8k (0%)
Top ten expense areas
- Waste Shared Service£19.0m
- Replacement Leisure Centre£11.7m
- Retained Business Rates£8.8m
- Accessible Homes (Disabled Facilities Grants)£6.5m
- Capital Expenditure (Non Current Assets)£3.5m
- Insurance Administration£2.8m
- Stocks and Stores£2.4m
- Corporate Costs - Non Distributable Costs£2.4m
- Unallocated S106 Affordable Housing Monies£2.2m
- IT licences£2.1m
The five largest single payment lines
| Date | Supplier | Expense area | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 April 2023 | STAFFORDSHIRE PENSION FUND | Corporate Costs - Non Distributable Costs | £2,150,000 |
| 19 May 2026 | DARWIN PROSPECTS LLP | Cinema Development | £1,588,750 |
| 13 April 2026 | STAFFORDSHIRE PENSION FUND | Corporate Costs - Non Distributable Costs | £1,492,000 |
| 19 May 2025 | CANNOCK CHASE DISTRICT COUNCIL | Retained Business Rates | £1,218,893 |
| 21 July 2025 | CANNOCK CHASE DISTRICT COUNCIL | Retained Business Rates | £1,218,893 |
Read with care
- The files are described as payments over £500, yet 7,603 of the 25,536 lines are for less than £500. The figures here include every line as published.
- 280 lines have negative amounts, together £1,537,080. They are netted off the totals.
- Suppliers are compared by name. 8 appear under more than one spelling (for example BWOC LTD and BWOC LTD (MB ENERGY)), and each spelling counts separately.
- Months are the month each file was published for. Some files include payments dated in earlier months.
How we worked this out
- Source: the 83 monthly Payments To Suppliers files on the council’s Hub, 25,536 lines in all, joined into one table. The column names changed in 2023 (“Supplier Name” became “SupplierName”), so they were matched up.
- Financial years run April to March; only complete years are compared.
- The figures are computed from the published data when this site is built, not typed in by hand.