A tourism organisation will be put under the microscope in a history-making investigation.

Bradford Council will see if the public are getting good value from the Yorkshire Tourist Board.

But the decision for the choice of the board as the first inquiry by a new Council scrutiny has been attacked by Liberal Democrat members, who wanted it to focus on a drug and alcohol awareness project.

They say the issues of drugs and alcohol and how to tackle them are a huge issue of public concern.

But the Council's external scrutiny committee will use its new powers to examine the Tourist Board and make recommendations if necessary.

Future inquiries by the committee could be in to Yorkshire Water, British Gas, Yorkshire Electricity and the West Yorkshire police and fire authorities. The Probation Service and West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority are also included on a list approved by the committee for possible inquiries.

Committee chairman Council-lor Andy Mudd (Lab, Keighley West) said: "We are inexperienced and we decided to take something which was self contained and of considerable interest to the district. I wanted the officers to cut their teeth on a scrutiny exercise where we can expect a reasonable degree of co-operation. We don't want to jump in at the deep end of more contentious matters. But that's not to say we won't in the future."

A review team of officers will now contact the board and bring information back to the scrutiny committee for the inquiry, which is likely to take about three months.

But Coun Ann Ozolins (Lib Dem, Idle) said: "I am very disappointed that the committee hasn't gone for something else. I don't think the people of Bradford would show much interest in the Tourist Board."

A Yorkshire Tourist Board spokesman said: "The decision to pilot the inquiry procedure of the scrutiny committee using Yorkshire Tourist Board, underlines Bradford's definite commitment to promoting tourism.

"We have worked with Bradford Council and individual tourism operators for many years now and the opportunity to foster an even greater understanding of how we can work together in the future to the benefit of tourism in the area is most welcome."

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