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You have the right to to inspect the accounts of your local authority; ask the auditor questions about the accounts and challenge the accounts are set out in the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004. You also have rights to obtain information which is not about the accounts under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Your local authority will be able to provide you details of its publication scheme which it must produce under the Freedom of Information Act.
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Auditors appointed by the AGW to undertake the audit of local government bodies in Wales, whether WAO staff or private firms of accountants, do so independently of the AGW; although all appointed auditors must follow the requirements of the AGW’s Code of Audit and Inspection Practice and associated guidance.
Councils exist to serve the public. Most have helplines and helpdesks to help local people sort out problems they may have with services, benefits, and local taxes and charges. But, even in the best councils, things can go wrong. The leaflet summarises your rights to inspect, question and object to councils’ accounts. It starts with a short outline and then gives you more details if you want to know more.
If you think something has gone wrong at your council, what you should do is:
- telephone the council;
- write to the chief executive – in community councils this is the clerk; or
- contact your local councillor.
Most councils have their own complaints system. Complaints can be sorted out, either in writing or over the phone. But occasionally there are problems that someone else needs to deal with.
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If you think that your council has done something wrong, and you are not satisfied with how the council has dealt with your complaint, you should contact the Public Services Ombudsman. He will send you information about how you can take your complaint further.
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If you suspect fraud or improper use of the council’s money, you should write to or phone the council’s chief internal auditor. Your council will give you their name and address.
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For all councils, if you think that a council member’s behaviour has fallen below the high standards that public servants are expected to meet, you should contact the Public Services Ombudsman.
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If you want to question or challenge your council’s accounts, the council’s external auditor may be able to help you. The Auditor General for Wales appoints the external auditor.
Use the list below to jump to the required section:
- Freedom of Information Act 2000
- Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004
- Inspection of documents and questions at audit
- The right to object to the accounts
- What else you can do
- Your rights in more detail
- Your legal position
- Your right to inspect and make copies of the statement of accounts and the auditor’s reports
- Inspection of documents and questions at audit
- The Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 – section 30(2)
- Objecting to the accounts
- Items in the accounts that break the law
- Report in the public interest
- Making an objection
- Decisions about your objection
- Useful addresses
Your rights: a summary
1. Freedom of Information Act 2000
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives you a general right of access to ‘recorded’ information held by public authorities. You can obtain information from a public authority from an approved publication scheme. However, if the information is not included in the publication scheme, you can make a separate request under the Act.
Requests must be made in writing, which includes e-mails. Public authorities generally have 20 working days in which to respond to a request. Public authorities are allowed to charge you a fee for responding to your requests and if the fee is not paid within three months it is assumed that the applicant no longer wants the information.
There are exemptions to the information that you can obtain e.g. commercially sensitive or personal information. If any of the information you have requested is exempt you should be told which of the exemptions authorises the public authority to withhold the information.
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2. Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004
You have a right to inspect your council’s accounts and to ask the auditor questions about the accounts. Electors, of the council, may also challenge the accounts. You can find out who the appropriate auditor is, and where to write or phone, by:
- telephoning your council;
- telephoning the Wales Audit Office on 029 2026 0260; or
- e-mailing info@wao.gov.uk
The right to inspect and make copies of the statement of accounts and auditor’s reports
When your council has finalised its accounts for the previous financial year, usually around June or July, it must advertise that they are available for people to look at. You can get copies of the accounts from your council. You can also inspect and make a copy of any report made to the council by the auditor.
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3. Inspection of documents and questions at audit
When your council had advertised the availability of its accounts for inspection you can also inspect all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them. You then have 20 working days to look through the accounts and supporting documents.
You may not inspect documents that are not relevant to the accounts or are otherwise legally protected, and, you can only ask the auditor questions about the accounts for the year that they are auditing.
The auditor does not have to answer questions about the council’s policies, finances, procedures or anything else that is not relevant to the accounts. The auditor does not have to say, at this stage, whether they think something the council has done, or an item in its accounts, is unlawful.
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4. The right to object to the accounts
If you are a registered elector (on the electoral roll) of the Council, or are an authorised representative of someone who is, you may object to the accounts or items within them. There are two grounds on which you may object to the accounts.
If you think that an item of account is unlawful, you can object to the auditor by writing to him/her (this is taken as being a formal ‘notice of objection’). You must tell the auditor why you are objecting. The auditor must reach a decision on your objection and provide a statement of reasons if you ask one. If you are not happy with that decision, you can appeal to the courts.
You may also object if you think that there is something in the accounts that the auditor should tell the public about in a ‘public interest report’. Again, you must give your reasons. In this case, the auditor must decide whether to take any action.
The auditor will normally, but does not have to give reasons for their decision and you cannot appeal to the courts. You may not, however, use this ‘right to object’ to make a personal complaint or claim against your council. You should take personal complaints or claims to the Council, your local Citizens’ Advice Bureau, local Law Centre or to your solicitor.
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5. What else you can do
At any time, you can give the auditor information that is relevant to their responsibilities. For example, you can simply tell the auditor if you think that something is wrong with the accounts or about waste and inefficiency in the way the council runs its services.
You do not have to follow any set time limits or procedures. This is also the situation for NHS organisations, where you do not have the right to ask the auditor questions about, or object to, the accounts. The auditor does not have to give you a detailed report of any investigation into the issues you have raised, but they will usually tell you the general outcome if you ask them to.
Councils, and so local taxpayers, must meet the costs of dealing with questions and objections. Auditors will take valid objections but will consider a range of factors in deciding how to deal with them. They must take into account the costs that will be involved. They will only continue with the objection if, in their judgement, it is in the public interest to do so. If you appeal to the courts, you might have to pay for the action yourself.
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6. Your rights in more detail
These notes provide some more information in relation to your rights to inspect, question and object to a council’s accounts in more detail, but still in general terms. If you need more specific detail, you should refer directly to the acts, regulations and other documents that are mentioned in the text, or get legal advice.
Please remember that you do not have the same rights in relation to the accounts of centrally funded bodies (such as the Wales Assembly Government and NHS bodies) where the audit is undertaken by the Auditor General for Wales and not one of his appointed auditors.
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7. Your legal position
Your rights in respect of local authority accounts are set out in sections 29, 30 and 31 of the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004. The detailed regulations that set out how you can use these rights are contained in the Accounts and Audit Regulations.
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8. Your right to inspect and make copies of the statement of accounts and the auditor’s reports
The Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 – section 29(1)
At each audit of a local government body scheduled under paragraph 12 of this Act, a local government elector for the area of a local government body in Wales may:
(a) at all reasonable times and without payment inspect and make a copy of any statement of accounts prepared by the body under the accounts and audit regulations;
(b) at all reasonable times and without payment inspect and make a copy of any report made to the body by an auditor;
By the end of July each year, most local authorities finish preparing their accounts for the financial year which ended on 31 March of that year. They must tell the public, by advertising in at least one local newspaper that their accounts are available for people to inspect for 20 full working days. Community Councils can announce this by putting up a notice in a public place, instead of putting an advert in a newspaper.
Any person who is interested has the right to inspect and copy the accounts and any reports by an auditor, or ask for copies to be delivered to them (upon payment of a small charge at the discretion of the council).
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9. Inspection of documents and questions at audit
The Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 – section 30(1)
At an audit of accounts an interested person may:
(a) inspect the accounts to be audited and all books, deeds, contracts, bills, vouchers and receipts relating to them, and
(b) make copies of all or any part of the accounts and those other documents.
Councils must also advertise the fact that the other documents mentioned in section 30(1) of the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 are available for people to inspect for 20 full working days. The advert or notice must also give the dates, times and places where the public can see and copy the documents.
It is an offence for anyone to try and stop you from inspecting and copying documents, although you are expected to make a mutually convenient appointment to do so. If there is any disagreement about what your rights are, you should contact your council direct or go through the courts. The auditor cannot get involved.
You cannot inspect and copy documents that contain personal information about a member of staff (please see section 30(3) of the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004). This means, for example, that details of payments or other benefits that an employee receives will be confidential. The council and an auditor cannot give you personal information about anyone when they answer your questions.
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10. The Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 – section 30(2)
At the request of a local government elector for the area to which the accounts to be audited the auditor of those accounts must give an elector or any representative of his an opportunity to question the auditor about the accounts.
The advert or notice that says the accounts are available for people to inspect will also tell you when you can ask the auditor questions and object to the accounts. Your right to ask the auditor questions is limited. You have a right to ask questions about the accounts, but you cannot ask questions about a council’s policies, finances or procedures that are not about the accounts.
Before you ask the auditor any questions, you should inspect the accounts so that you know what they contain. You may then ask the auditor to explain certain points in the accounts before deciding whether or not you want to ‘object’ (this right is explained later).
If you do ask questions that are not about the accounts, the auditor may suggest that you ask the council for the information you want. But, in general, the auditor cannot act as a ‘postbox’ for questions to, and replies from, your council.
Your questions should be about facts, not opinions. So you should not ask an auditor if they think something a council has done, or an item in its accounts, is lawful or reasonable. An auditor must work independently so you cannot ask them questions about how they are carrying out, or have carried out, their work.
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11. Objecting to the accounts
The Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 – section 31(1):
At an audit of accounts a local government elector for the area to which the accounts relate, or any representative of his, may make objections to the auditor as to:
(a) any matter in respect of which the auditor has a power to apply for a declaration that an item of account is unlawful;
(b) any other matter in respect of which the auditor has the power to make an immediate or other report in the public interest
You, or your representative, can object if you think that an auditor should:
• apply to the High Court, under section 32(1) of the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004, to confirm that an item in the accounts breaks the law; or
• make a report, under section 22 of the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004, on a matter that they think the council should consider or tell the public about (a ‘public interest report’).
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12. Items in the accounts that break the law
An item in the accounts breaks the law if it records spending or income that:
• the council had no right to spend or receive;
• was spent or received without authority;
• was taken from, or added to, the wrong fund or account; or
• was spent on a lawful purpose but was so high that it was unlawful.
If an auditor considers an item to be unlawful, he or she may apply to the High Court to confirm that an item in the accounts is unlawful. If the court agrees, it may order that the accounts are put right. In reaching a decision whether to apply to the courts, the auditor will take account of a number of factors, including cost.
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13. Report in the public interest
If you are not satisfied with a council’s decision or action but your objection does not involve anything unlawful or a failure to account for spending or income, your objection can only result in a public interest report by the auditor – subject to the auditor agreeing that the matter is appropriate for such a report.
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14. Making an objection
If you want to object to a council’s accounts, you must give formal notice of your objection, in writing, to the auditor. The formal notice must include:
• why you are objecting;
• the details of any item in the accounts that you think is unlawful; and
• the details of any matter that you think the auditor should make a public interest report about.
You must also send the council a copy of your objection. The Local Government Act 1972 explains how to serve notices on councils. Section 231(1) of the Act says that the notice:
...shall be given or served by addressing it to the local authority and leaving it at, or sending it by post to, the principal office of the authority or any other office of the authority specified by them as one at which they will accept documents of the same description as that document.
When you are thinking about whether to object, you must appreciate that councils have the power to decide what they think is the best way to do things. The fact that you may strongly disagree with something the council has done does not mean that you can challenge that action.
An auditor and a court cannot question a council’s policy or decisions unless these are unlawful. If you do decide to make an objection, and if your objection contains personal or sensitive information, you should mark it appropriately to avoid the risk of the information being seen by an inappropriate person. Whilst no guarantees can be given, you may show this by marking the objection and the envelope containing it, ‘Private and confidential – for the attention of the Chief Executive (or Clerk)’.
You cannot use the objection process to make a personal complaint or claim against a council. If you think that your council has done something wrong, the Local Government Ombudsman will investigate the matter. If you think that a council member’s behaviour has fallen below the standards that public servants are expected to meet, the Local Government Ombudsman will investigate the matter. If you think you have a claim against a council, you can get advice from your local Citizens’ Advice Bureau, local Law Centre or your solicitor.
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15. Decisions about your objection
When an auditor issues their decision about an objection, they will usually explain their reasons for the decision. If the auditor does not give any reason, you have 14 days from the time you are told what the decision is to ask the auditor for a ‘statement of reasons’ in writing. If you are not happy about an auditor’s decision you have the right to appeal. You must register your appeal in the Crown Office at the High Court within 28 days of receiving the auditor’s statement of reasons for their decision.
An auditor’s decision on objections that ask him or her to make a ‘public interest report’ is final. The auditor will tell you what their decision is but you cannot ask for a statement of reasons or appeal.
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16. Useful addresses
The Auditor General for Wales
2/4 Park Grove
Cardiff
CF10 3PA
Phone: 029 2026 0260
E-mail: info@wao.gov.uk
Fax: 029 2026 0026
Website: http://www.wao.gov.uk/
Public Services Ombudsman For Wales,
1 Ffordd yr Hen Gae,
Pencoed,
CF35 5LJ
Tel: (01656) 641 150
Fax: (01656) 641 199
http://www.ombudsman-wales.org/
ask@ombudsman-wales.org.uk
Information Commissioner’s Office - Wales
2 Alexandra Gate
Ffordd Pengam
Cardiff
CF24 2SA
Tel. No. 02920 894929
E-mail: Wales@ico.gsi.gov.uk
Fax. No. 02920 894930
Website: http://www.ico.gov.uk/
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