MORE than £2,500 has been spent on sandwiches and drinks by the City of Lincoln Council in just one month, the Echo can reveal today.

Details of the council's monthly expenditure have been published under the Government's new transparency scheme.

Every time more than £500 is spent, information about the purchase must be made available for public scrutiny.

And items for October and November 2010 can now be viewed online at data.lincoln.gov.uk

Listed in November's table is £2,630 under the heading civic Miscellaneous from Finefood2U Ltd.

This includes the catering costs of 11 different civic events, including the Grenadier Guards' visit and the annual commemoration of the Bradford City stadium fire, when Bradford City representatives are welcomed in Lincoln.

More than £3,000 was spent in November on Hackney carriage and private hire vehicle MoT tests.

Drivers were charged, then Cory Environmental was paid to do the tests. Nine approved garages are now paid directly by the applicant.

An invoice for £3,718, which covers one quarter, was for crematorium doctors who sign medical certificates before cremation – the Brant Road Surgery and an unconnected GP are used. The charge is £18.50 per form.

In the same month, Dunn and Co was paid £11,790 for siteworks for land for the provision of burial space and £5,857 was spent on gas for the crematorium.

Fuel for council vehicles cost £8,083 in November.

Meanwhile, £755 was spent on window cleaning at the Think Tank, in Ruston Way, Lincoln.

A further £2,469 was spent on internal cleaning, £655 on phones, £1,200 on specialist miscellaneous, £486 on stationery, £549 on security and £19.27 on consumables from a vending machine company at the building.

Communications manager at the City of Lincoln Council Chris Dunbar said the authority would continue to publish monthly data as part of its commitment to greater transparency. But he stressed that the data does not include income, which can balance expenditure.

"Although we hope people find the information to be a useful insight into local government, unfortunately we do not have the resources to publish detailed information alongside each of the thousands of invoices we receive each year," he said.

"This then leaves some of the information open to individual interpretation.

"For example, the invoices could be for annual, quarterly or monthly bills or even a one-off payment.

"The data list also does not list our income, which often offsets costs, particularly in relation to running our buildings and other facilities.

"Our aim is to provide value for money and to obtain the best value on everything we purchase and our annual published accounts show that we consistently achieve this."

Unison's regional head of local government Andy Belfield said: "The simple fact is that for every £1 councils spend, 60p goes into the local economy, which is one of the reasons we are so concerned about rushing through council cuts."