To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government pursuant to the answer to the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst of 19 January 2009, Official Report, columns 1072-3W, on councillors: Arun, whether the Audit Commission plans to obtain bank account information from councillors in other local authorities during its next National Fraud Initiative national data matching exercise. (268732)

This is an operational matter for the Audit Commission and I will ask the chief executive of the Audit Commission to write to the hon. Member direct.

Letter from Steve Bundred, dated 20 April 2009:

Your Parliamentary question on whether the Audit Commission plans to obtain bank account information from councillors in other local authorities during its next National Fraud Initiative national data matching exercise has been passed to me to reply.

All local authorities will be required to provide payroll data relating to a salary, members' allowance or other remuneration for the next scheduled exercise, NFI 2010/11. The fields required for data matching are set out in a 'data specification'. The bank account and sort code are included on the payroll data specification. This information is required under powers in Part 2A of the Audit Commission Act 1998.

A copy of this letter will be placed in Hansard.