Welsh Conservatives have called on Labour ministers to ensure further improvements in town and community councils’ financial management in Wales.

Questioning Labour’s Public Services Minister in the Senedd, the Shadow Minister for Local Government highlighted today’s Wales Audit Office report on finances, which concludes the number of qualified audit opinions and failures in financial governance remains too high.

Janet Finch-Saunders also called for a guarantee that community taxpayers will not have to foot the bill if additional audit fees are incurred by councils, due to poor financial governance.

Mrs Finch-Saunders said:

“Accountability and transparency within town and community councils is still clearly lacking and more must be done to ensure the figures properly stack up.

“Successive Labour-led governments have held the purse strings since 1999 and it’s about time they got a grip on financial management across all levels of local government.

“Labour ministers must guarantee taxpayers won’t end up footing the bill for these failings and ensure further improvements in governance are implemented swiftly.

“With Labour’s continued refusal to introduce a council tax freeze in Wales, as is happening in England, the last thing householders need is another unwanted Labour increase.”