THE leader of Herefordshire Council has hit out at the suggestion that a councillor should be thanked for highlighting concerns about finance reports.

At the council's full meeting Cllr Terry James asked if the council was going to thank Cllr Bob Matthews, leader of the Independents, for recognising the mistakes he discovered in council finance reports.

Cllr Matthews highlighted that an earlier council capital outturn report contained 23 inaccuracies, which resulted in another change to the spend figure on the capital programme of the city link road project.

But leader of the council, Conservative Tony Johnson, said Cllr Matthews had not been thanked and he said that every time this comes up someone says there were 23 financial errors, but that they were reporting errors as the figures were correct- but under the wrong headings.

He said: "That Cllr Matthews hasn't been thanked doesn't surprise me. I am surprised that Cllr James is allowing himself to be drawn into this desperate search for something not to like about this particular subject. There is no reason to thank Cllr Matthews for bringing it to our attention.

"If you are suggesting we should thank Bob for getting something in the [news]paper, that ain't going to happen. This was a reporting error, not a financial error."

Cllr Paul Newman, chairman of the audit and governance committee, then went on to say Cllr Matthews had been thanked for his efforts.

Cllr Matthews said he was appalled by the leader's comments as "these were serious financial errors."

He said the figures on the link road have been changed around so much that he would be appalled if anyone said it was decent financial management.

He added: "For the leader to say these weren't financial errors, it is unbelievable."

Cllr Newman agreed to ask both the internal and external auditors to respond to Cllr Matthew's concerns.