A council paid for a washing machine, dining chairs and a £2,006 stay at a hotel using taxpayer-funded credit cards, it has emerged.

Walsall Council spent £28,997.33 on credit cards in 2010-11, according to new figures on their use for items above £500. I

nformation released under the Freedom of Information Act shows Sandwell Council spent £57,895 since 2008.

Figures for Walsall reveal it spent £515 on 10 dining chairs from Bhs and £500 on a washing machine from Comet.

There was also £2,006 spent at the Hotel Caravel using grant funding for the Daphne Project, a European Union scheme to tackle domestic violence. It is not clear which country the hotel is in but the cost was incurred in December.

Walsall’s finance chief Councillor Christopher Towe said today: “I will ask my finance team to provide some further details of this.

“I introduced rules that said any expenditure had to be clearly defined as important and necessary.”

Sandwell’s spend included £10,635 on legal fees, with the rest on training and maintenance.

The fees were for court administrative costs, vehicle testing and breakdown cover for council-owned vehicles.

The largest single spend on a credit card was £16,000 in November 2008 for an operator’s licence.
Sandwell Council finance boss Councillor Steve Eling said: “There’s nothing on our credit cards that  shouldn’t be there.

“We introduced credit cards a number of years ago to save costs. They are for small-scale purchases.”

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