The leader of Gravesham Council is facing fresh questions about his directorship of a private company owned by the county council after it emerged he had not disclosed it in a second register of interests.

It was reported last week how Cllr Mike Snelling (Con), also a county councillor, was being pressed to explain why he had not recorded his non-executive directorship of Kent Top Temps in Kent County Council's register of interests.

Kent Top Temps is an arms-length trading company set up by KCC four years ago. It recruits staff to fill temporary vacancies across a range of professions and has an annual turnover of some £5million and made about £300,000 for the council last year.

The extent of KCC's commercial activities has sparked hostility among some businesses, who have claimed KCC is not transparent enough and raised concerns of cross-subsidies.

Until last week, Cllr Snelling had also not recorded his directorship of the company in Gravesham council's own register of interests.

He has now updated his entry and also confirmed he had updated his details in KCC's register of interests. Mr Snelling said he did so because it was possible Gravesham would contract business with the KCC-owned companies and he wanted to be transparent.

He said that as his directorships are unpaid, they did not necessarily have to be recorded and as a result there was nothing that had breached any statutory rules.

In an email to the Kent Messenger Group, he said: "My conversations with legal [officers] at both KCC & Gravesham Borough Council reassure me that I have not acted illegally, albeit I will now show all my unremunerated directorships for commercial services to avoid future accusations of lack of transparency.

"The important point is that the companies are 100 per cent owned by KCC, plus the declaration asks for details of remunerated directorships."

He said: "At the time we set up these companies, there was not this politically-generated furore and there was no perception that these companies would cause a stir in the commercial world. We were simply doing what the Government wanted us to do."