Shropshire Council

Expenditure on travel by air on council business 2009-11

1. It's the council’s policy to sanction travel by air (economy class) only on an exceptional basis, where it can be shown that it is cheaper than other alternatives and in terms of the cost of staff time.

2. We have recently imposed a spending freeze on any attendance at conferences or external events, unless they can be shown to be absolutely vital and will lead to a clear and immediate benefit for the people of Shropshire, for example, by helping us continue to cut our costs.

3. Sometimes overseas flights are unavoidable. Often they are funded externally, at no cost to local taxpayers, for example where the council has specialist expertise which other countries want to learn from.

4. We will update these spending figures annually on our website as part of our Open Data programme because it is important the public can see how their council tax is being spent.