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Today ministers were lambasted for not knowing how many jobs have been created in West Yorkshire by the £1.1bn coalfield regeneration scheme.

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A committee of MPs slammed government efforts to breathe new life into former coal mining areas, saying it was "extremely doubtful" that the initiatives are achieving value for money.

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In a highly critical report, the Public Accounts Committee said many coalfield areas were among the most deprived in England.

Despite spending £630m of public money so far, ministers cannot say how many jobs have been created, how many businesses are based on redeveloped coal sites or how many people have benefited from the13-year investment.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) was today told to "start afresh" before it spends the scheme's remaining £450m.

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Coalfields regeneration has seen three areas of activity: the National Coalfields Programme, which decontaminates and finds uses for former pits, the Coalfield Regeneration Trust, which funds community projects; and an enterprise fund which provides start-up cash for businesses.

Redevelopments have taken place at Allerton Bywater, Astley Lane in Swillington, Fryston and Wheldale in Castleford and Woodhouse Farm in Ackton.

Successes include the £7m Frickley Country Park near Wakefield, which opened last July,the regeneration scheme at Glasshoughton, and Green Lane Industrial Park in Featherstone.

During the last two years the Featherstone-based Coalfield Regeneration Trust has provided £204,891 in funding for five community projects in Leeds and £2.2m for 79 projects in Wakefield.

The number of jobs the initiatives have helped to create nationally could be anywhere between 8,000 and 16,000.

The MPs fear that taxpayers' cash has been spent on creating jobs that would have been created anyway.

Their report adds: "The Department does not know what improvement the initiatives had made to the lives of people living in the coalfield areas, as it does not have a robust assessment to prove to us the true number of additional jobs created."

Edward Leigh MP, the committee's chairman, added: "It is extremely doubtful whether the initiatives are achieving value for money."

Some 200,000 people worked in the coal industry in 1981, but that figure is now just 7,000.