Scotland Yard puts £7m on plastic

Scotland Yard faces renewed calls to cut spending on 'in-house' credit cards after new figures revealed its American Express (Amex) bills have spiralled to £7m-a-year.

With the Metropolitan Police in the midst of a corruption probe over irregular spending on Amex cards, new documents show annual company-issue credit card bills ballooned from £811,056 to £6,912,672 in just four years.

More and more police officers and staff have been handed credit cards, with each card-holder now spending an average of £2,300-a-year in taxpayers' money.

Two officers - and one former officer - have already been arrested by Scotland Yard in relation to irregular Amex payments, while 800 cards were recently cancelled as part of the probe.

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "Spending on plastic cards can be seductive even for hard-headed policemen. "The Met clearly need to get a grip on this and ensure proper budget and expenses control with tax-payers money."

Officers and staff at the Met are given Amex cards to pay for travel and accommodation, with an emphasis on costs incurred abroad.

A breakdown of the figures - obtained under freedom of information rules - show that 336 officers and staff spent £811,056 on the cards in 2003/4. The figure jumped to £2,436,300 for 921 employees in 2004/5, and to £4,953,622 for 2,607 employees in 2005/6.

By the end of the last financial year, £6,912,672 had been spent by 3,004 officers and staff.

As well as a criminal investigation by the Met into dodgy payments on the cards, the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) is also carrying out an audit of how the cards are used.

Tony Arbour, a member of the MPA, said: "It seems these payments have not been scrutinised as they should have been. The auditors have been combing through the accounts and quite substantial sums are being looked at. The payments seem to have ballooned extraordinarily."

Documents from the MPA show that £4.7m in "unreconciled" spending on the Amex cards is still outstanding.

A detective constable and detective sergeant have already been arrested and bailed in relation to the spending irregularities, while last month a 51-year-old former detective sergeant was also arrested in relation to the probe.

Public spending watchdog the Audit Commission has vowed to keep a close eye on the MPA audit, before deciding whether to carry out its own independent investigation.

A spokesman for the commission said: "The district auditor is aware of the issue and the action that is being taken by the MPA and the Met to reconcile and investigate outstanding expense claims, and to improve the underlying systems and processes going forward.

"He will consider whether any action is required on his part once that work has been completed, and he has had an opportunity to review it and consider its findings."

The Met's current investigation into Amex spending follows a similar probe in 2004/5, into what the MPA described as "a number of questionable returns." One detective was revealed to have used his card to pay for his wife's plastic surgery

A spokesman for the Met said: "The numbers of cards increased significantly between 2003/04 and 2006/07 as the pilot, which originally only involved officers from special branch, diplomatic and royalty protection, was extended firstly to other officers within SO, then to SCD and finally across the MPS as a whole.

"As awareness of the card scheme increased officers and staff regularly working outside the Metropolitan Police District transferred to using the cards rather than temporary arrangements so they no longer needed to travel to a central location to collect an advance for their travel and subsistence expenses."

A spokesman for the MPA said internal control of the Amex payments had been "unacceptable" and new "watertight systems" needed to be put into place. Its corporate governance committee hopes to publish a report into the matter later this month.

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