Research for Action is investigating the effectiveness of the Local Audit and Accountability Act in relation to the rights it grants the public to:

  • inspect council financial accounts

  • ask a question to the auditor on the accounts

  • object to items of the accounts

We would like to base our evidence on the experience of as many people as possible who used the Act. Responses will inform a report we will publish in 2020.

If you have used one or more of these rights we would value your responses to our questionnaire. All responses will be made anonymous and we will ensure that you can not be identified.

If you have used the Act multiple times, please fill in a separate questionnaire for each year or issue you focused on, or if you prefer to fill in the questionnaire just once refer to the most relevant case for you. Please do fill in the questionnaire even if your request was not accepted or did not lead to a response.

Below are links to the different parts of the questionnaire. If you used more than one right, simply start from the first and then we will redirct you to the following ones:


If instead you prefer to be interviewed in person or over the phone, please email fanny@researchforaction.uk.

A few notes on how the questionnaire works:

  • Please fill in each section of the questionnaire in one go. The software does not save a copy of your responses until you complete the questionnaire, so there will be no way to retrieve them if you do not complete it

  • You can edit your questions by scrolling back and forth through the questionnaire

  • No question is mandatory, so feel free to skip the ones you don’t want to answer

  • If you provide your email once submitted your responses, you will receive a copy of your response. We will not use your email for any other purpose than this.