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.

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 by finance director Nick Aves and monitoring officer Susan Walsh 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.

The report, which will go before the council's policy committee tomorrow says Mr Mason took advice on hospitality from BIFFA in April last year, shortly after the company won the cleansing contract.

Council director David Brown, who carried out the inquiry, finance director Mr 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.

The senior officers rule Mr Mason made an error of judgement: "He did not deliberately ignore the comments of other senior officers but perhaps interpreted them in the way which gave him the answer he wanted."

The report authors say the service manager acted with good intentions and did not take up the offer of tickets himself.

He had accepted he had made an error of judgement and would not repeat it, they add.

Coun Brooks said the report was a feeble effort with no action proposed against the staff concerned.

He said: "Anybody who can describe £25 for prime seats at a key match, a four-course lunch with wine, free car parking and a match programme as 'a fair price' must be inhabiting a different mental planet or deliberately insulting the intelligence of council taxpayers."