A CONTROVERSIAL City of York Council report is staying under wraps, despite calls from a key committee.

Audit and Governance Committee members have told council leader David Carr they are worried about a lack of openness and transparency, because the report has been kept secret.

The row sprung up after a stormy committee meeting in February led to two investigations - one into council procurement processes and a second into what happened at the meeting. The first was published last month but while Cllr Carr confirmed he had seen the second, it has not been released.

Yesterday the committee’s seven members - including Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green councillors - pushed again for it to be made public.

They wrote: “We hope that you as leader and City of York Council will learn from past events at audit and governance and push forward towards greater openness instead of just trying to fulfil minimum expectations with members and the public.

"When writing public reports, we should carefully balance the legitimate public interest in disclosure against data protection concerns, working with redacted or summarised reports with private annexes rather than excluding whole reports as confidential.”

However, Cllr Carr has written back telling the councillors that proper processes - like employment processes and councillor standards boards - cannot be prejudiced.

He said: “I fully agree that there is a need to balance the legitimate public interest in disclosure of reports with appropriate employee confidentiality and data protection concerns.”

Five people concerned in the report - three council officers and two elected members - are now to get a chance to see and respond to the report. Whether the document is published after that depends on the responses and on legal and HR advice, Cllr Carr added.