IT fails to engage older people and wants pensioners to "vote and then get back in their boxes for another four years".

That was the damning verdict on City of York Council by the chairman of York's Older People's Assembly, Don Parlabean.

He claimed the authority was dismissive of the elderly and their views, and was completely overlooking the potential of the assembly, wanting only to use it as a "tick-box organisation" rather than as a developer of policies for older people.

Mr Parlabean said he feared the council's "inability to engage with older people in the city" was likely to be behind its failure to get a £780,000 funding bid shortlisted for Government consideration.

But his claims were dismissed by council leader Steve Galloway who said the authority had a "good record of engaging different groups in its decision making processes".

The council, earlier this year, put forward a bid to the Government's Partnership for Older People Project funding.

Mr Parlabean claims this funding, which could have paid projects such as support for carers of older people, failed because it could not be demonstrated that York was engaging and involving the elderly in implementing the services they use.

"The potential of the Older Peoples' Assembly is being completely overlooked by the council.

Unfortunately they clearly see their relationship with older people as primarily users of council services rather than an important group with a vital role to play in the future of the way those services are provided in the city," he said.

"The Government wants councils to work in effective partnership with community groups and they need to look again at properly supporting an active and involved Older People's Assembly in the city so that other similar funding opportunities are not wasted again in the future."

Coun Sandy Fraser, Labour health spokesman, said: "Councils are increasingly being required to forge good working relationships with partnership groups to ensure that decent services are being provided in the city. Yet the Lib Dems continue to be dismissive and this is the result."

Coun Galloway said: "The York Council has a good record of engaging different groups in its decision- making processes. Older people are well represented on the council.

The bidding guidelines for the funding stream mentioned are very clear. The bid was from a partnership which included the York Council and the Primary Care Trust.

"The Older Persons Assembly were one of the other organisations involved. The bidding guidelines make no reference to any specific requirement for the council to fund the Older People's Assembly (or any similar organisation).

"Only 22 applications out of 106 were approved, in May 2006, to progress to the next stage in what was a highly-competitive process.

"The Council does fund other organisations such as Age Concern which undertaked works similar to that mentioned in the application."

A council spokeswoman said: "A representative from the Department of Health indicated verbally that the council's bid showed strong evidence of older people's involvement and consultation, both thMother says school food could be harming son's health'rough the actual project grant process and the older people's strategy development."