The 'unusual' lack of online access to South Ayrshire Council meetings during the pandemic was unheard of according to the depute chairman of the Accounts Commission.
While the streaming service has now been put in place, Tim Mackay said that he had not been aware of any other council that had not been allowing a form of online access to meetings during Covid.
He added: "It was quite an unusual thing. I hadn't heard of any other councils that weren't allowing any access to their meetings."
Scrutiny was touched on again in the recommendations that councillors take up training to ensure they can properly monitor decisions.
The report said that councillors should take up opportunities to learn, having revealed that less than half of councillors attended training sessions.
Mr Mackay explained the importance of training for members, saying: "A typical councillor won't have a financial background and, at the end of the day, they are responsible for spending millions of pounds.
"Councillors need to ask insightful questions in order to probe what is going on."
He also made it clear that there was plenty to be positive about, with residents generally happy with services – with satisfaction in nine of 11 key categories higher than the Scottish average.
Mr Mackay was also very positive about the work of the council since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, but added that this could not be used where there was a comparison to other authorities which have faced the same issues.
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