A new Council scrutiny committee was under fire today amid claims it cost more than £11,000 to discover the Yorkshire Tourist Board was working properly.

Committee member Ann Ozolins (Idle, Lib Dem) said the Council was faced with the heavy cost because two senior officers were working on the inquiry for a month and nine councillors spent large amounts of time on it.

Coun Ozolins said: "It is absolutely ridiculous that we have spent over a month scrutinising an organisation that no-one seems to have a bad word to say about.

"The Council seems to get excellent value for money from the Board in terms of the £15,720 it pays it, which has helped to promote £270 million investment in the district.

"Councillors are paid £7,500 a year and wasted time when they could have been doing something far more useful.

"The external scrutiny committee was set up to investigate whether external bodies or organisations are providing best value. Yet I believe it has spent almost as much as it pays to the board to scrutinise it.

"If the committee is to be seen as something other than an expensive white elephant, it should now start to scrutinise the organisations the people of this district want to be looked at for particular reasons."

But committee chairman Councillor Andy Mudd said: "The figure of £11,000 is unfamiliar to me. I don't know where she has got it from."

He said the tourist board's work was economically significant and the committee would be looking at many other organisations.

Coun Mudd said Coun Ozolins was unfair and represented only a small group of people as a Liberal Democrat.

Council leader Councillor Ian Greenwood said the external scrutiny had an important part to play and he expected it to look at all organisations.

"It is very unfortunate when we are trying to work in a co-operative way in a modernised council."

But Leader of the Council's Tory group Councillor Margaret Eaton said the committee was a "mockery" and should be looking at what the public wanted.

The next subjects to be put under the spotlight include professional sport, and the district's drug and alcohol partnership.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.