CLAIMS of censorship on a council website designed to get ideas from the public on how to save cash have been denied.

Barnet Council set up the ideas.barnet site earlier this month aksing residents for ideas on how to save an estimated 25 per cent of its budget over the next three years.

However, some ideas were appearing in the tags section on the website, but not in the list of ideas, leading to claims of censorship from the borough's blogging community.

Tags appearing without ideas included a suggestion concerning Councillor Brian Coleman and one about reducing 54 per cent allowance increases for committee chairmen, which was later allowed up.

However, the council insists no comments have been taken down and say tags appear when the ideas are held in a queue for moderation before being allowed up on the site.

Among the terms and conditions on the site are the right to remove racist or offensive language, or anything deemed party political.

A spokesman added: “Like any responsible website we moderate comments and our criteria for moderation is displayed on the site.

“We are very keen to get ideas from a range of our residents and we hope all residents will take the chance to look at it.”