An Assembly spokesman confirmed DUP, Sinn Fein, SDLP and Ulster Unionist members have agreed not to publish Hansard accounts of the Programme for Government Committee.

Yet its forerunner, the Preparation for Government Committee, published word-for-word Hansard records of all its meetings.

Alliance leader David Ford said the new committee was being given the " perks and privileges" of an Executive-in-waiting.

Mr Ford, whose party is excluded from the programme committee, said: " Either they are an Assembly committee or they are not. Assembly committees are supposed to be open and transparent. People are supposed to know what is going on.

"Yet none of the usual rules seem to apply here and none of them have taken a pledge of office. These are people who complain of the lack of openness by the Northern Ireland Office and yet are behaving in exactly the same way."

The Alliance chief said the predecessor to the Programme for Government Committee, the Preparation for Government Committee, had published its proceedings in full.

"But there will be no Hansard for either this committee or its sub-groups and its minutes will only tell us as much as people want to go into them," he added.

"This committee is being given all the privileges and perks of an executive and the four parties are accepting those privileges and perks."