Shropshire Star

Shropshire and Telford councils spend £30,000 in year on hospitality

Nearly £30,000 was spent on hospitality and refreshments in a year by councils in the Shropshire and Telford.

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Figures revealed following a Freedom of Information request by the Shropshire Star show that Telford & Wrekin and Shropshire councils spent the money on events hosted by themselves in the financial year ending April 2015.

Shropshire Council – which could not provide data solely for the amount of money spent on refreshments – spent a total of £20,692.24 on hospitality for the year.

It said the figures included refreshments and "some room hire" for events and meetings hosted by the council. A total of £7,439.50 of this figure was provided by the council's own facilities, and £13,252.74 was spent on external hospitality.

The total spent represented a drop of more than £450 from the previous year, 2013/14, when it spent £20,234.35. The council said from this figure, a total of £11,810.11 of this amount was provided internally by the council's own facilities, and £8,424.24 was spent on external hospitality.

A spokesman for the council said: "Due to the way that this data is held in our financial system, we are not able to provide the exact amount spent purely on refreshments for meetings and events hosted by Shropshire Council.

However, detailed is the total amount spent on hospitality which includes refreshments and some room hire for events hosted by Shropshire Council.

"It should be noted that these figures do include costs that Shropshire Council has incurred in its role as accountable body for grant and partnership schemes and therefore is recovered specifically from grant funding for these schemes.

"This includes events hosted by the Marches LEP and this represents a significant amount of the external hospitality purchased by the council. It is not possible to separate out the exact costs relating to these grant and partnership schemes. However, it should be noted that the actual refreshment costs of events run purely for Shropshire Council's purpose would be significantly lower than the total figures quoted."

Telford & Wrekin Council has cut its spending by nearly two thirds over the past five years. The council spent £7,300 during the financial year ending in 2015, down from £21,600 it spent in 2011/12. And since April last year up until the beginning of December, the council spent £5,900 on refreshments and hospitality at meetings and events.

Council spokesman Rob Montgomery said: "The council's policy is not to provide refreshments at internal meetings involving only council employees.

"Occasionally they are provided where there are representatives from external organisations and in relation to specific events such as the youth forum, the youth parliament, parent craft events, some activities at children's centres, and some consultation events."

In 2012/13, the council spent £12,700, and £8,700 in 2013/14. In total over the five financial years starting April 2011 and ending in December last year, the council has spent £56,200 on hospitality and refreshments.

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