By politics.co.uk staff

The government has removed the “cloak of secrecy” from Whitehall by publishing its spending data for the last two years.

The Combined Online Information System (Coins) is the Treasury’s public sector financial database and is used to help manage taxes and supply estimates.

It comes as part of the coalition government’s wider moves to improve transparency. By November all items of spending from Whitehall over £25,000 will be published online, it was announced earlier this week.

“The coalition agreement made clear that this government believes in removing the cloak of secrecy from government and throwing open the doors of public bodies, enabling the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account,” an explanatory note on the Treasury website said.

“Nowhere is this truer than in being transparent about the way in which the government spends your money.”

Officials do not expect ordinary members of the public to cope with the millions of rows of data contained in the spending.

The note warns that “some degree of technical competence” will be required to cope with the figures, but it is expected “institutions and experts” will be able to use them to improve government scrutiny.