Civil servants spent £1 billion on taxpayer-funded credit cards

Civil servants spent £1.1 billion using taxpayer-funded credit cards last year to pay for items including gourmet meals and fine wines, it has been disclosed.

More than 137,000 officials used the ‘government procurement cards’, pushing up the bill for 2012-2013 to four times that of 2002 – despite David Cameron’s pledge to curb their use.

The money spent on the cards could have paid for 52,000 new nurses.

A total of £1,655 was spent by Home Office staff on a stay at the luxury Hilton Rose Hall resort and spa in Jamaica’s Montego Bay.

Officials at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport spent £927 on a single picture frame, while the Planning Inspectorate spent £646 on a ‘specialist ergonomic chair’.

It has become harder to scrutinise what the cards are being spent on - Buying Solutions, the agency previously responsible for the charge cards, displayed charts and tables on its website but these are no longer available.