A long-awaited review of Assembly expenses has made no recommendation on MLAs renting constituency offices from family members.

MPs have been barred for years from directing office rental expenses to relatives.

But the practice is still permitted under current Assembly rules.

The examination of Stormont pay and expenses by the Senior Salaries Review Body did not issue a finding on this anomaly.

A small number of MLAs confirmed earlier this year that they had rented offices from family members.

The list included Ulster Unionist Michael McGimpsey, Alliance member Kieran McCarthy and Gregory Campbell (pictured) of the DUP.

UUP MLA Billy Armstrong paid rental expenses to his wife up to the end of last year for a prefab constituency office on the family farm.

Ian Paisley Snr and Ian Paisley Jnr, meanwhile, rented their Ballymena office from a firm headed for several months by Mr Paisley Jnr’s father-in-law.

The father-in-law was replaced as the company’s sole director earlier this year by a north Antrim DUP member.

But he is still listed as the firm’s only shareholder at the government-run Companies Registry.

Figures released earlier this year showed the Ballymena office was the most expensive to the Assembly, with the Paisleys claiming a combined rental sum of £57,000 a year.

It is a sizeable, two-storey property and includes a meeting room. There are no current limits on the size of constituency offices, although the SSRB is recommending that guidance be drawn up for future use.

Its new report also concluded that independent assessments of rental charges be obtained |in future, when MLAs move to new premises or renew rental agreements.

An Assembly review for the SSRB by consultants from the Hay Group also examined office-running expenses.

It noted that the annual office allowance available to MLAs had increased “dramatically” from £48,000 before the restoration of devolution, to a current level of almost £73,000. This includes staff costs as well as rental and other building-related payments.

The London-based Hay Group suggested that a review of the office-running expenses be carried out after planned changes in councils in Northern Ireland.

It based its discussion on rental costs on an assumption that “£15,000 should typically be sufficient to fund two constituency offices, including rent, rates, utilities and incidentals”