YORK councillors have been criticised by visiting officials for a lack of visible leadership and for "salami slicing" budgets to save money.

The city council invited councillors and officials from other authorities see their operations, as part of a "peer challenge" to improve council working. When the six-strong peer challenge team left the city in March, it wrote to council bosses, setting out what the authority should do.

Now that letter has been published along with an initial action plan from York bosses and a promise to let councillors debate the reports openly at a public meeting.

See the peer review feedback and action plan here.

The reviewers said while York had made some progress since their last visit in late 2014, there is more work to be done on things like making sure elected councillors and top staff in leadership positions are visible to council workers.

They also need to make it easier for professionals to give honest advice and challenge ruling councillors, the letter said.

A major concern was the way top York councillors set a budget earlier this year by "salami slicing" money off all departments instead of trying to change things strategically. In future ruling councillors need to make sure they talk to managers in all departments about budgets, and allocate cash in a way that properly backs up the council's priorities.

In a joint statement, City of York council leader and deputy leader David Carr and Keith Aspden thanked the team for their "thoughtful recommendations."

They said: "We asked the team to focus on areas in which we believe we need to strengthen and deepen our work and we are grateful for their very specific and practical response. We are working to take action to address all of the key points, as part of our continuous drive to get the best for our residents and the city as a whole.

"We are pleased to see recognition that we are already on the path to delivering innovative ways of delivering services and are looking ahead to ensure these are expanded, built upon and are sustainable to make sure York residents continue to benefit long-term."

Labour's Cllr Stuart Barnes has cautiously welcomed the documents and the news councillors will be able to scrutinise the action plan at a public meeting.

He added: "At a first glance, however, it appears that there are some pretty serious problems that have been flagged here, particularly with the Tory and Lib Dem coalition failing to communicate with people outside and even within the council. In addition, the political leadership of the Lib-Dem and Tory coalition has developed an action plan which demands that the council's hard working employees find solutions to the problems raised in the report, rather than taking more responsibility for their own shortcomings."