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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of reinstating mandatory independent external audits of local authorities.

Independent external audits of local authorities are mandatory. Under Section 4 of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014, all ‘relevant authorities’ must have their accounts externally audited. All local authorities in England are relevant authorities in line with Schedule 2 to that Act.