North Tyneside Council was left facing a £57,000 bill after the first tenant of the restaurant at the Saville Exchange went bust in July 2004.

Both internal and external investigations highlighted a number of failings in the council's monitoring, performance management and communication systems, particularly with the restaurant facility.

The investigations also revealed failings in the leasing and management arrangements of the restaurant facility and delays in addressing issues.

Now, a series of 23 recommendations brought by an overview and scrutiny group last September have been approved or recommended by cabinet members.

At their meeting last week, cabinet officials said they would learn from the mistakes made to ensure there was no similar scenario.

Coun Jim Allan said: "I would like to stress that this piece of work shows that, as an organisation, we are prepared to learn through the proper process.

"It sets out what went wrong and what should not be repeated and what went well and should be repeated.

"Hindsight would be good if we can see things coming but we can only learn from our past."

He added that 75 per cent of the recommendations had been accepted or were already in place.

Recommendations approved include that tenants pay their rent by direct debit, to identify non-payments at an earlier stage; a lease signed before the tenant moves in; include provision for written-off debts to be reinstated; and alter the debt collection process.

Coun John Stirling said: "The council had already taken on board some things that happened in the past.

"A lot of these have been taken on board. I thought the final report wasn't bad.

"We have learnt from our mistakes and hopefully they won't happen again."