But serious claims are cut from Aberdeenshire Council�s final report

A litany of damning allegations about illegal waste dumping, pollution breaches and the mishandling of confidential data on children have been covered up by a Scottish local authority.

Senior officials at Aberdeenshire Council doctored an internal waste audit to cut out its most serious findings, including a warning that the council was vulnerable to "legal action, expensive penalties, loss of credibility and extensive reputational damage".

A suggestion that the council could also be guilty of "double standards" was omitted, along with the conclusion that "waste management as a service appears to be near the bottom of the list of priorities for Aberdeenshire Council".

A copy of the Internal Waste Audit Report considered by the council last year has been leaked to the Sunday Herald. It reveals that sections of text in the original draft of the report were deleted before it was given to councillors.

The report was written by auditors, Ciara McGarry and Isobel Macleod. The aim was to assess, then reduce, the amount of waste produced by the council, and to check its compliance with waste legislation.

The report named four sites where they alleged that waste was being disposed of in breach of the law. The waste included old car batteries, a burnt-out car, tar and other road wastes.

One site in the report - the Raebush Storage Depot near Aboyne - subsequently featured in a court case in which Aberdeenshire Council pled guilty to fly-tipping. The council was fined £16,000 at Stonehaven Sheriff Court in May, 2007 for dumping waste without a licence.

The auditors' original report also accused the council of illegally disposing of oil drums, and of burning plastic in defiance of pollution law. It suggested that there had been a breach of confidentiality at a council office in Banff.

"Although a shredding service is available in this property, the auditors found confidential documents relating to special needs children in the general waste," the report said.

None of this evidence was included in the final version of the report that was put before councillors in January 2007. Most heavily edited were the report's conclusions, cut by more than half.

"A number of instances where Aberdeenshire Council are operating in an illegal manner in relation to the disposal of waste have been identified and noted in this report," said the text before it was deleted.

"It must also be pointed out that if Aberdeenshire Council were to face legal action in relation to its handling of waste, the loss of credibility suffered would be extremely damaging to both members and management."

Reports to council meetings have acknowledged that Aberdeenshire will fail to meet a legal target for cutting the amount of biodegradable waste disposed of as landfill. At the end of November it was estimated that the council would breach this year's limit by 9000 tonnes, exposing it to a fine of up to £450,000.

Despite improvements, the council still has one of the worst recycling records in Scotland (see table).

It is sixth from the bottom in the latest league table for 2006-07 produced by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

The council's handling of the internal waste audit has been criticised by the Aberdeenshire Environmental Forum, an independent local group. But the group said said its concerns had been dismissed by councillors and officials.

"We were most concerned that such practices had been identified," said the forum's convener, Jackie Cumberbirch.

The forum has forwarded copies of the uncut audit to the Scottish government, Sepa, Audit Scotland and the procurator fiscal.

"We remain concerned about the contents of the original audit and have not yet been wholly satisfied by the council that the practices highlighted have been stopped and appropriate remediation measures put in place," said Cumberbirch.

The council, however, was defended by councillor Martin Ford, chairman of the sustainability sub-committee. He said that he had sought and been given an assurance by senior officials that "nothing significant that was factually correct had been removed from the report in order to conceal this information from councillors".

Text had been deleted because in some cases it was wrong or out of date, Ford said. "In other cases, an opinion - not necessarily one universally shared - was being expressed," he stated.

"The tone of the report needed to encourage and support improvement, not unfairly pillory staff."

Friends of the Earth Scotland called on Aberdeenshire Council to "get a grip" on its waste management. "It is not good enough just to cover up the problem and hope it will go away," said the group's head of campaigns, Stuart Hay.

A spokesman for Aberdeenshire Council said: "The final version of the report was discussed in January 2007, and a number of observations made in an earlier version of the document were dealt with separately."

He added: "At the time of the audit, Aberdeenshire Council was only midway through the roll-out of new waste and recycling collections and, since then, much progress has been made.

"Aberdeenshire is on target to meet, and potentially exceed, the Scottish government's recycling target of 27%. We are also continuing to work to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill."