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Spending watchdog the Audit Commission spent £20,000 in the past two years on luxuries such as meals in Michelin star restaurants.
The Commission, whose mission statement is to drive economy, efficiency and effectiveness in public services, allowed officials to use corporate credit cards to pay for fine dining, cinema tickets, doughnuts, clothing, gym equipment, sweets and music from HMV.
Officials spent hundreds of pounds at Marco Pierre White's L'Escargot, frequented by Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, as well as a brasserie owned by celebrity chef Raymond Blanc, the Daily Mail reports.
In the past three years, the body, which is due to be axed in the government's quango cull, spent £4.7m alone on hotel rooms for staff.
Local government minister Grant Schapps said: "It seems the Audit Commission was not applying checks and balances on itself that it preached to councils.
"What is so disturbing is that their expenses read like a shopping list for some lavish party."
The figures were revealed in an answer to a parliamentary question by conservative MP Eric Ollerenshaw.
An Audit Commission spokesperson said; "In common with many public bodies the Audit Commission uses government procurement cards for low value transactions or where a purchase order is impractical.
"Between April 2008 and March 2010 we processed 8,818 transactions at an average cost of £125. All purchases were for legitimate business purposes.
"Payments made by these procurement cards are routinely checked to ensure the cards are being used correctly."
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Gov't watchdog blows £20k
I like how the spokesperson highlights that the 'procurement cards are used for low value transactions'. If these are the 'low-value procurements' it might interesting to see the 'medium-value' or 'high-value' procurements...can we expect to find a Porsche or two, maybe even a yacht? And of course these are all for demosntrable business purposes that the Inland Revenue allows and accepts....yeah, right!
Posted by: Baron Bolligrew
Expenses for business purposes
Putting the 'fine dining' to one side, as maybe, just maybe, there were good reasons to take people to L'Escargot, but then other acceptable claims were for cinema tickets, doughnuts, clothing, gym equipment, sweets and music from HMV. I wonder therefore if I can now legitimately put similar purchases through my expenses and expect, nay demand' that HMRC accepts them? Or might, just might, HMRC wish to query them?
Posted by: Stephen Cooper
Dont make me laugh
What is most disturbing is that anyone beleives anything they read in the Daily Mail. Mugs.
Posted by: Mark
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Gvt. Watchdogs blow £20k on fine dining.
As time goes by more, more issues come out of the woodwork and more and more people from the government and quangoes have had their snout in the trough. If one had time, it would be interesting to find out how many millions if not billions have been spent over the past 10 years on this gravy train. Add this to all the money spent on other countries that need not have been and it must have been enourmous. Tye taxpayer cannot be expected to keep funding these situations.
Posted by: terry