Under this act, the public can be excluded from an open council meeting under a number of grounds relating to keeping information confidential - such as that keeping the meeting public "would be likely to result in the disclosure of information for which good reason for withholding should exist".
Mayors, and academics spoken to by Hawke's Bay Today agreed that keeping certain information confidential is necessary to ensure the functioning of local authorities.
University of Otago Associate Professor of Politics Janine Hayward stated it was not unethical in principle for councils to exclude the public from some of its decision-making processes.
"Sometimes the public's perception of elected representatives who spend 'public money' is that they ought to be transparent on all matters and public access is a right," she said.
The six councils in Hawke's Bay operate differently, with some smaller councils meeting fewer times a year, and larger council's also having a number of committees - this means their respective number of publicly excluded meetings cannot be fairly compared.
Since January 2014, 95 per cent of Napier City Council's meetings - all 23 bar one- have included publicly excluded items.
At Hastings District Council, 26 of the 32 council meetings held from the beginning of 2014 to last week were public excluded, equalling 81 per cent.
Wairoa District Council meets once a month. Of the 46 council, or extraordinary council meetings held since February 2014, the public has been excluded from 35, totaling around 76 per cent.
Over the past three years, 69 per cent, or 28, of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council's 39 meetings have had publicly excluded items.
At Central Hawke's Bay District Council, 16 of the 25 council meetings between October 2013 and October this year had public excluded items, giving them a total of 64 per cent.
Massey University Associate Professor of the School of People, Environment and Planning, Christine Cheyne, said generally the appointed staff familiar with meeting procedure and legal obligations would decide, or advise elected members, about whether or not an agenda item should be discussed in private.
"However, there are often occasions when the legal grounds for including an item in part 2 are used when it is questionable whether those legal grounds really apply," she said.
Although councils are able to exclude the public, the LGOIMA does state they must do so through a resolution, which has to describe the general subject of each matter to be considered while the public is excluded, and how this relates to the act.
This resolution has to be made while the meeting is open to the public.
University of Auckland Associate Professor of Law, Kenneth Palmer, said the minutes of these meetings should also include information on the subject of discussion, and what were the reasons for excluding the public.
"That's something I don't think all councils do observe correctly," he said. "I think there are some councils who don't even identify the nature of the discussions, and they want to totally suppress the whole thing which is wrong they should at least give a hint to what their talking about."
All Hawke's Bay's councils include this information in their agendas, and minutes.
The reasons for excluding the public vary, and can range from protecting the privacy of an individual, to ensuring they do not constitute contempt of court.
Dr Hayward said there were very good reasons why councils chose to exclude the public from some decision-making - decisions which were an important part of the "effective functioning" of councils.
"Having said that, it is good that access to information is rigorously tested by the public from time to time to 'keep elected officials honest'," she said.
"It's a matter of balance."
Over the past three years the public have commonly been excluded from a meeting so councillors can confirm the minutes, or discuss and item from a publicly excluded portion of a previous meeting.
However the most common specific reason for public exclusion are for matters of commercial sensitivity - by extension this means those councils which have hearings, or tenders committees usually exclude the public.
Dr Palmer stated in circumstances like these the person being excluded could be a competitor, who otherwise could use the information to gain an advantage in the process.
"When it's simply frank speech, [meetings] should be open but going beyond that...it sometimes does require an element of confidentiality to enable the appropriate decision to be reached," he said.
"The other view is the council may really want to thrash something out and not have people suppressing their true feelings, and simply voting without disclosing why they're voting a particular way."
As the 30th anniversary of the act approached, Dr Cheyne said she thought the original "spirit and purpose" of the legislation needed to be revisited to "ensure that not only has it not been undermined but that it is being more comprehensively implemented".
"Lack of transparency undermines the accountability of councils to their communities," she said.