YORK'S housebuilding trends over the past year are being discussed behind closed doors today.

City of York Council's report on "Housebuilding statistics for York in 2013/14" is being reviewed at a private decision session meeting by Cllr Tracey Simpson-Laing, the council's cabinet member for homes and safer communities, and Cllr Dave Merrett, cabinet member for planning.

Last year, the council's own auditors criticised the authority for a lack of clarity around which decisions were made privately rather than publicly, and opposition councillor Nigel Ayre has today hit out at the privacy, saying the written report to the cabinet councillors should be made available more widely in advance.

>> Read the auditors' report here

The council's official forward plan stated only that the issue would be dealt with some time in September, and did not say whether it would be addressed in public or in private.

The council said that since the auditors' criticism last year, it had placed a note on its website saying that issues marked with a broad date range, rather than a specific date, would be dealt with in private.

Andy Docherty, the council's head of legal, said: “City of York Council exceeds the legal requirements in this practice. As in this case, all decisions are put on the forward plan, whether they are held in private or public. Whilst cabinet members do not statutorily need to give any notice of their proposed decisions or how they propose to take them, in York we have always published all decisions."

Liberal Democrat councillor Nigel Ayre has asked for a copy of the report being considered by Cllrs Simpson-Laing and Merrett, before the meeting, but his request has been refused.