A DAMNING report into the massive financial losses incurred by the Island's council during last year's Rock Island festival has slammed "sloppy" reporting procedures between the authority and the group appointed to oversee the running of the event.

Ticket sales were also overestimated and the financial risks were not disclosed to members in the months leading to the festival which lost the council about £330,000.

The results of the inquiry were revealed to councillors after a meeting last Wednesday.

It gives a breakdown of events leading up to the loss-making festival in June last year which was held at Seaclose in Newport.

Headline acts included former lead singer of Led Zepplin, Robert Plant, and The Charlatans.

In the report, author Neil Newton states that the council's director of finance John Pulsford had not been aware of the existence of the proposed festival until hours before a report to the council's executive arrived on his desk in November 2001.

Mr Newton goes on: "Members were also faced with reports which showed little financial risk. Sober reflection was not allowed and its absence was not properly reported."

The body appointed to overview the festival was also criticised for having "sloppy" reporting procedures to the Island's council.

The report adds: "When it became obvious that substantial losses were likely to be incurred, as ticket sales were falling well behind the estimates, the decision to carry on because the likely cost of cancelling the concert heavily outweighed the costs of continuing was taken by this group without reference to the select committee or executive."

The report also criticises the way in which the Island body responsible for tourism, Wight Leisure, had been "pushed from pillar to post" through successive organisational reviews.

The report concludes: "There was, and maybe still is, a widespread misunderstanding about the formal decision-making process in the Leader/Cabinet model of operation."

The leader of the Conservative group on the Island's council Councillor Andy Sutton said: "It is a damning document."

Island council leader Councillor Shirley Smart welcomed the inquiry. She said the council was already taking steps to rectify weaknesses identified in the report.

She said: "The 2002 launch event was planned at a time of massive change in the decision-making structures of the council and the report is clear that this background, more than any lapse by those planning the event, led to a failure to accurately identify the financial risks being taken."