Foreign trips, KFC treats and ukuleles – how councils are splashing out on the plastic

Officers in local authorities have used them to pay for visits to Paris and Venice, a tour of Arsenal Football Club and even pay off parking tickets slapped on cars by their own council's wardens.

An investigation by the Express & Star has revealed five councils spent a total of £7.5m in just one financial year – on almost 1,500 'purchase' or 'procurement' cards that are used by their staff.

They have bought two patio sets costing a total of £640.38, three SpongeBob SquarePants cushions at £11.97, eight ukuleles for £159.92 and a bowler hat priced £9.99.

Dudley Council paid more than £417 sending three of its staff by aeroplane to Edinburgh so they could attend an awards ceremony.

The return flights to the Edge Innovation Awards were considered the most economic way of getting to Edinburgh and back for three people because at the time the return train fares were around £200 per person.

The same authority has also funded 147 transactions at KFC or McDonald's, which council bosses say may have been for children.

In fact, Dudley Council was the biggest spender, with £5.5m from 2011 to 2012 paid on 862 corporate purchase cards distributed throughout its workforce. Staff made 50,407 transactions in 12 months, including meals in top restaurants and nights in hotels around the country.

And after asking councils for details of spending on cards the Express & Star has learned:

• An officer paid £423 for a tour of Arsenal FC in February 2012

• Various trips abroad were made including one to Venice and two to Paris.

• Staff lunches, Christmas cards and buffets were bought at Marks & Spencer.

Wolverhampton City Council has spent £4,547,851.48 in four years on its cards, although it could not produce detailed figures on its day-to-day expenditure.

Walsall Council spent £1,116,545.87 on 183 cards, which it says are purchase cards rather than credit cards, between April 2010 to April 2013.

Sandwell Council has 12 active credit cards, spending £145,232.36 in the past four financial years.

Smaller councils Cannock, Stafford and Wyre Forest have 31 credit or 'corporate procurement' cards between them, but only Wyre Forest revealed how much it had spent as the other two said the information would take too long to produce. All councils contacted as part of our probe say they have not had to pay any interest on their cards, as they always pay their monthly statements on time.

And they defended using the cards.

Dudley Council chief executive John Polychronakis said: "Purchase cards are a modern, efficient way of dealing with and managing local authority transactions to improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary paper trails and bureaucracy."

Councils are increasingly using 'procurement' cards, which look and work similar to credit cards and are provided by the likes of NatWest and Barclaycard, to let staff make purchases.

The main difference between procurement cards and normal credit cards is the spending limits are controlled by a senior council officer. They also allow councils to collate individual purchases into one monthly payment to the provider.

Recent figures show that spending on such cards by civil servants at central government level reached £1 billion within the last year.

Stricter rules on spending were last year called for by the Public Accounts Committee. Its chairman Margaret Hodge expressed disappointment at some of the spending and said the committee may look at the issue again. Local government secretary Eric Pickles has called for councils to publish details of all their spending.

Matthew Sinclair, the chief executive of the pressure group TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Councils should publish bills for their taxpayer-funded purchase cards automatically.

"That way residents can scrutinise how their cash is spent and hold wasteful bureaucrats to account. Town halls have a duty to keep this spending down, some are blowing a fortune unnecessarily and putting the cards in the hands of too many staff."

Update 19.07.13: Comment from Sandwell Council - We would just like to point out that no foreign travel, trips or food were paid for using Sandwell Council credit cards. We supplied the Express and Star with details of around 170 credit card transactions we made over the past four years. The vast majority of these were for vehicle licensing, TV licenses and court fees.

For a special report on council credit card spending, see your Weekend Express & Star