Police credit card spending spree sparks row
Officials rack up bills of £3m in taxpayers' money buying exotic things such as beehives
London: The police are at the centre of a multi-million-pound expenses row after extraordinary spending binges on taxpayer-funded credit cards.
Officials working for a Government policing quango used the cards to buy items such as exotic lingerie and beehives while racking up bills of more than £3 million (Dh18.06 million) a year.
On Saturday night the quango claimed the underwear had been used to re-enact crime scenes, while the bees were said to be necessary to fertilise an allotment at a staff training college.
But MPs dismissed the defence, calling the spending, revealed under a Freedom of Information request, outrageous and demanding an investigation.
The row comes amid a battle between the Coalition and senior civil servants over the use of the 140,000 procurement credit cards embossed with the words HM Government which have been issued to Whitehall officials and in town halls around the country.
Ministers were horrified to discover that despite more than £1 billion of public money being put on the cards every year, any spending lower than £1,000 a month has not been routinely audited.
And they have been infuriated by what they privately call blocking tactics at the top of the Civil Service when they have tried to establish how many officials have been abusing the perk by using the cards to make personal purchases. Just four out of the 25 Government departments have released details of internal probe into the card use.
The disclosure of secret bank statements shows astonishing spending by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA), a £368 million-a-year outfit set up three years ago by Labour to support the police service by providing expertise in areas such as serious crime analysis and the development of new policing technologies and skills .
