Taxpayers deserve to know exactly how Welcome to Yorkshire spent millions in public funding under Gary Verity: Yorkshire Post Letters

Council taxpayers of each of the Yorkshire regions have to thank the new chairman of Welcome to Yorkshire Coun Peter Box, for giving us a financial insight as to how much Sir Gary Verity, ex-Chief Executive Officer, cost the residents and businesses of Yorkshire.

Two crises 21 years apart: Wakefield Council leader Peter Box on repeating history with Welcome to YorkshireI acknowledge that as a leader he thought of ideas to promote Yorkshire to the world. But for these to be implemented he needed a dedicated team of staff who were respected, but at what cost?

During his 10 year tenure, local authorities were subject to huge budget cuts from Central Government and were forced to bring in austerity measures, resulting in closing youth centres, libraries and leisure centres.

This apparently did not affect Welcome to Yorkshire! What is the time cost of employing the CEO on £243,000 salary, plus pension, not to mention his and the then chairman Ron McMillan’s unaccountable expenses?

I did not previously realise that private companies can participate in local authority pension schemes.

On top of local authority membership fees, how was event sponsorship monies spent for the likes of Tour de Yorkshire?

Welcome to Yorkshire need to publish any existing auditors accounting reports and business plans to show where the millions each year has been spent. Welcome to Yorkshire owe this to the council taxpayers of Yorkshire and also the companies who sponsored events promoting Yorkshire.