Members, in anticipation of a quorum, the next item of business is about the Local Government Auditor's draft Code of Audit Practice 2021.

I beg to move

That the Local Government Auditor's draft code of audit practice 2021 be approved.

The Business Committee has agreed to allocate 30 minutes to the debate. The Minister will have five minutes in which to propose the motion and five minutes in which to make a winding-up speech. All other Members who wish to speak will have five minutes. Please open the debate on the motion, Minister. Muna miste leat, a Aire, an gcuirfeá tús leis an díospóireacht ar an rún?

Article 5(1) of the Local Government (NI) Order 2005 requires the Local Government Auditor to prepare, and keep under review, a code of audit practice that prescribes the way in which auditors carry out their functions for district councils and other local government bodies. Article 5(2) of the 2005 order provides that such a code shall embody what appears to the Local Government Auditor to be:

"the best professional practice with respect to the standards, procedures and techniques to be adopted by auditors."

Article 5(3) provides that a code of practice will not:

"come into force until approved by a resolution of the Assembly, and its continuation in force is subject to its being so approved at intervals of not more than five years."

The Local Government Auditor consulted interested parties about the draft code of audit practice in 2021. Fourteen responses were received as part of the consultation. I therefore seek the Assembly's approval for the Local Government Auditor's draft Code of Audit Practice 2021 to come into force with effect from 1 April 2021.

On behalf of the Committee, I thank the Minister for bringing the motion to the House. The Local Government Auditor's code of audit practice came into force on 1 April 2016. At that time, it was under the remit of the Department of the Environment and was therefore considered by the corresponding Committee. Since then, it has been transferred to the remit of the Department for Communities. The Committee for Communities understands that article 5(3) of the Local Government (Northern Ireland) Order 2005 provides that the draft code will not:

"come into force until approved by a resolution of the Assembly" and that it will then be subject to approval:

"at intervals of not more than five years."

The Department alerted the Committee to its intention to lay the code before the Assembly by way of a motion to be tabled in the week commencing 15 November, and the Committee considered the draft code in its correspondence at its meeting on 4 November. On behalf of the Committee, I support the motion that the draft Local Government Auditor's draft code of audit practice 2021 be approved.

The Local Government Auditor has an important role to play in overseeing council financial statements and the dissemination of information contained in yearly financial reports, as well as statutory obligations and some key governance responsibilities. It is therefore important to review regularly the code of practice and to update it where necessary if the situation changes.

The independence of the office is critical to reaching an opinion on local institutions and their use of resources. It is welcome that the code of practice is being reviewed in line with regulations to do so every five years. The principle in the code of practice that auditors must carry out their roles:

"with integrity, objectivity and independence at all times" is crucial to the impartial nature of the role and should always be at the centre of the decision-making process. The code of practice acts as the guiding principles for the Local Government Auditor, and, as such, it is important that it be robust and stand up to scrutiny. I thank the Minister for bringing the code before the House, and I assure her of my support.

I will make a couple of short points. Obviously, it is right that there should be a code. I have always had some reservations about the juxtaposition of the Local Government Auditor and the Northern Ireland Audit Office and about the crossover in that office. My primary difficulty over the years with the Local Government Auditor is the practice that has developed whereby individual auditors are embedded, as it were, with a council for a period of up to five years. They will be embedded with more than one council. In my experience, that has induced what I perceive to be an unhealthy cosiness in the relationship between council and the Audit Office.

I have had experience of that with an issue that I had with a council. The auditor looked at the issue, simply accepted at face value nonsense that they were told by the council, did not dig or interrogate, and gave a clean bill of health on an issue on which that should never have been the outcome. That issue now lies at the heart of the Minister's having to seek a special audit of that council. It is tangential to that.

The relationship that can develop between the Audit Office and councils is one that needs to be kept under close scrutiny, because public faith is put in the auditors to be interrogatory in their approach to matters rather than to be fobbed off with answers that are convenient to the council but that bear little relation to the function of the auditor in getting to the bottom of those matters. I trust that, in any code, there will be more vigour required and expected with regard to these matters. I trust, too, that when special audits are ordered, they will have the same vigour. Therefore, I trust that lessons can be learned, and will be learned, from what I see as failings that I have experienced with one particular council in the past, and that, going forward, we will see greater interrogatory rigour from the Local Government Auditor.

I thank the Chair of the Committee and those who have contributed. The outworkings of any review or special audit that has been conducted by the Department will be looked at. We will assess that once it has concluded, and any appropriate changes or recommendations will be made then.

The existing code is similar to the previous code that was passed. It is principles-based. It is about reflecting the good practice and developments in other public bodies, not just here but in Britain and across this island. It continues to incorporate the Local Government Auditor's statutory responsibilities with regard to performance improvement audits and assessments that were introduced as part of the 2014 Act. We will continue to keep that under review. Members should not hesitate to talk to me or departmental officials if they have any specific issues. We are more than happy to do that. Again, I beg that this be approved today.

Question put and agreed to. Resolved:

That the Local Government Auditor's draft code of audit practice 2021 be approved.