A SENIOR town hall officer has been rapped by his bosses for allowing staff to accept hospitality at December's Burnley v Blackburn Rovers derby clash.

Burnley Council chiefs say environmental health and cleansing service manager Andrew Mason made "an error of judgement" in giving the go-ahead to three members of his team to enjoy a four-course lunch, drinks and a grandstand view of the Turf's biggest game of the year as executive box guests of BIFFA -- the waste disposal giant which last year won the £12million contract to operate the town's cleansing services.

Town hall bosses launched a three-month inquiry after Independent Group leader Harry Brooks complained that despite the fact the un-named employees paid £25-a-head for the hospitality, there was a clear conflict of interests. Now they have ruled that codes of conduct for both employees and councillors should be tightened and staff should not accept hospitality or gifts unless cleared by a council director.

The inquiry report says staff should not have accepted the hospitality, even though workers believed fair payment had been made.

They state there was an ongoing contractual relationship between the council and BIFFA whose performance was monitored by staff who could influence default notices for poor service and penalty payments made against the company.

While there was no suggestion the staff involved had been influenced, it was important that employees not only acted correctly but were seen to be doing so. The officers add that even if staff had paid the £35.71 per head BIFFA say the places over a season cost them, the staff would still have received benefit because of the high demand for tickets for the match, which was a sell-out.

The council directors say, in mitigation, the staff did take and follow the advice of their boss Mr Mason and did pay the amount suggested to them.

Council director David Brown, who carried out the inquiry, finance director Nick Aves and the internal audit manager all recall advising against the acceptance of hospitality from the company.

Mr Mason's recollection was that the advice given to him was that if fair payment was made, it was in order for staff to attend and he advised them accordingly.

The report says it was "unfortunate" that no note was taken of the discussions.

The hospitality accepted was, as required, entered into a council record book -- but not until after the match.