Blog: Over the past two years, Shropshire Council has spent £28,000 of taxpayers’ money sponsoring the Shrewsbury Flower Show.

As a major summer attraction which puts the county on the global tourism map, it is only right and proper for the local authority to have a profile at the event, and show its support.

Yet today, it emerges that a proportion of this year’s £13,000 council spend went on champagne and food for representatives of the authority who were wined and dined in a VIP marquee on the Quarry showground.

This clearly smacks of insensitivity and poor judgement.

Remember, this comes at a time when the authority’s 6,500 workers are being asked to take a pay cut averaging 5.4 per cent, or risk being fired, as part of a campaign to shave £76 million off council overheads.

In a climate such as this, the authority must have known that any cash it spent on sponsorship of events such as Shrewsbury Flower Show would be placed under the microscope like never before, and would need to pass a stiff public scrutiny test.

So there are two possibilities.

Either the council thought it would be perfectly acceptable for its guests to be seen sipping bubbly funded out of council coffers, or organisers hoped it might slip under the radar.

When every penny clearly counts, there is a serious question mark over whether the council should have been spending any money at all on hospitality this year.

After recent revelations over hotel bills for business trips and spending on iPads, it only widens the growing “us and them” rift between senior council figures, and the rank and file workforce.

Shropshire Council’s bosses and workers may all be in this together, but some appear to be far more “in it” than others.