Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 7 June 2017.
I thank the Member for the question. I have indeed seen the information that was supplied through FOI requests and, as far as I can see, that information does make it clear that all the decisions that led to the information in the public domain were made in full accordance with the council’s own democratic procedures. However, the White Paper, ‘Reforming Local Government: Resilient and Renewed’ does include a proposal for a new legal duty on local authorities to consult with partners and the public in budget setting and to do that annually, and no doubt some of the information that is currently in the public domain would have been in the public domain earlier had that procedure been in place.