LIVERPOOL Council covered up details of corporate hospitality lavished on officials, the Daily Post can reveal.

The authority has apologised for the cover-up, which was instigated following a Freedom Of Information (FOI) Act request by the Daily Post.

The cover-up, which happened in 2009, only came to light after the results of an internal council investigation were leaked to the Daily Post.

Last night, council leader Joe Anderson described it as “a scandal” and vowed that it would not happen again.

Daily Post Editor Mark Thomas said: “I was shocked when I discovered that information we legitimately requested from Liverpool Council, on a matter of public interest, had been doctored before being given to us.

“We need to be reassured that the council has set up rigorous procedures to ensure that this kind of tampering with the truth can never happen again.

“When an organisation misleads the Liverpool Daily Post, it misleads our readers, and that is inexcusable.”

The Daily Post will now be referring the case to the Information Commissioner’s Office for further investigation.

The cover-up happened after the Daily Post requested details of the register of hospitality received by officials in September 2009.

Cllr Anderson, who was leader of the Labour opposition at the time, also requested the information.

During October 2009, the council collated the information requested, but a number of amendments were made and items deleted, according to an internal audit investigation report dated January 2011.

The investigation concluded there were inconsistencies between information in the original register and information released and that items were deleted.

The report does not offer an explanation for why this happened, but council sources have speculated it may have been to save embarrassment about some of the hospitality which was received.