A £13 million agency that promotes tourism and jobs in the capital has been criticised for its lack of transparency.

London & Partners (L&P), which is funded by the Greater London Authority, has come under fire for its attempts to be more transparent after it refused to publish any minutes of sub-committees and meetings with other companies it works with.

Last year questions were raised about the agency and the unclear origins of an extra £340 million the agency said had been added to London's economy, as a result of new jobs created following the work of L&P around job promotions in the capital.

Andrew Cooke, the chief operations officer at L&P, on Tuesday told the London Assembly budget and performance committee that since then the agency had taken steps to become more transparent.

These included publishing minutes of its board meetings, details of any payments over £250 and details of companies it works with.

But Mr Cooke said it could not publish any minutes of sub-committee meetings and meetings with other agencies.

He said: “This is because of commercially sensitive information and the additional cost burden of it.”

But Liberal Democrat Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon, said: “That is not transparent at all. That is completely tokenistic.

“Surely as an agency that gets significant funding from the mayor you should be publishing everything.”

The 2019 budget for the agency is currently £13.1 million with 50 per cent funded by the Greater London Authority and the other 50 per cent from the tourism campaigns it runs.

Conservative party Assembly Member, Gareth Bacon, added: “On the one hand I have sympathy with commercial sensitivity but on the other hand 50 per cent of London & Partners is funded by the tax payer.”

L&P also refused the committee’s request to put an Assembly member on its board for observational purposes, claiming it would “compromise” the member’s position as a “scrutiniser”.

The refusal came despite the Assembly arguing it would improve the budget and performance committees’ ability to scrutinise L&P.

The agency also said it would be publishing information about senior staff’s salaries and would make it easier to find these details on the website.

But Conservative party Assembly Member Susan Hall criticised L&P for only publishing minimum staff salaries.

She said: “Publishing minimum amounts of salary means nothing. I would rather see their maximum.”