Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that elected representatives, including local councillors, exercise public powers publicly to be accountable to the electorate for their decisions.

Local authorities are accountable to the public as they are democratically elected bodies. There are a range of measures in place to ensure authorities are transparent and accountable. These include the recordings of meetings under the Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations, the publication of spending data mandated by the Transparency Code, the requirement for minutes, agenda and reports to be made available for public inspection as set out by the Local Government Act 1972, and the statutory requirement for authorities’ accounts and VFM arrangements to be externally audited.