A POLITICAL war of words has erupted over county council spending on two projects.

Liberal Democrat councillors claimed yesterday that a review of countryside services in North Yorkshire had cost £100,000, despite only £130,000 being available this year to spend on implementing recommendations.

But Conservative councillors accused them of political scare-mongering and said the real cost of the review was just £32,000.

The new countryside service for North Yorkshire was launched on Tuesday, recommending voluntary rangers and a management service for the countryside. It followed a best value review of the county council's operations in rural areas.

Liberal Democrat councillor Claire Kelley said: "It is now clear that there have been no budgetary controls on the activities of review panels.

"It is ironic that a process designed to give better value for money should itself have been allowed completely free rein."

But Conservative councillor John Fort, who is the executive member for environmental services, hit back.

He said: "It is political scare-mongering. The countryside review received a great accolade, even from the Audit Commission, who said it was one of the best pieces of work they have seen."

He said the actual cost of the review was £32,000, with a further £58,000 being spent on implementing the recommendations, plus a budgeted amount of £145,000.

Also under fire from the Liberal Democrats was a new computer system at County Hall, Northallerton.

They said that an Internal Audit report revealed that the ResourceLink personnel and payroll system was implemented 15 months late, cost more than double the budgeted cost and was not able to provide the support and training that had been one of its purposes.

But a spokesperson for the county council said last night although the project did incur additional costs and that installation ran over time, the system was up and running and would save a lot of money.

The spokesperson said: "It works well and is already delivering benefits to the county council, giving us precisely the savings that the taxpayer would expect.

"A £860,000 spend out of a total budget of £500m is already giving us savings of around £200,000 a year. We will break even in 2006-07 and continue with savings of about £200,000 every year thereafter."