As England's chief investigator into Whitehall waste and extravagance, Sir John Bourn, the comptroller and auditor general, monitors billions of pounds of government expenditure and private contracts from business to run state services every year.
Yet over the past few months Sir John's own expenditure on foreign travel and entertaining, paid by the taxpayer, has come under increasing scrutiny after criticism that he was taking first class air travel for himself and Lady Bourn and dining out regularly in London.
Yesterday, in an unprecedented move for "open government", the National Audit Office (NAO) volunteered details of all Sir John's restaurant bills since 2004, the full cost of all his foreign trips and details of reciprocal entertaining he has received in the past six months from large accounting firms and leading government contractors who do business with his office.
The total travel bill for him, his secretary and, on 22 occasions, his wife, is more than £365,000 for the past three years. Over the same period he has run up a meal account approaching £27,000.
Details of the disclosures include:
· 175 lunches and dinners since 2004 with permanent secretaries, directors of big accounting companies and defence contractors at the Ritz, Savoy, Dorchester, Brown's Hotel, the Goring Hotel, Cipriani, Bibendum, Wiltons, Mirabelle and The Square. The bills, nearly all for two people, vary from £80 to £301. Many of the bills came to between £150 and £220. One bill for four people - two from the NAO - at Wiltons was £500. In the past six months, he has spent £1,651.56 on meals.
· Entertaining by large defence contractors and accounting firms included a visit to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone on July 8, paid for BAE Systems, the company caught in a corruption investigation over a Tanzanian defence order. Sir John has refused to release an NAO document on BAE's biggest and most controversial defence order, the Al Yamamah defence deal with Saudi Arabia.
· Sir John went for a dinner at the Savoy hosted by the Society of British Aerospace Companies on September 6; attended a polo match on July 29 funded by IT contractor EDS, which has multimillion-pound government contracts; visited the opera at Garsington on July 4 paid for by GSL, a company promoting public finance initiatives, scrutinised by the NAO; attended a reception and opera recital at Middle Temple Hall with Lady Bourn on June 6, paid for by Reliance Security Group, which has PFI contracts with local government and the police.
· Sir John and Lady Bourn took foreign trips with first class air travel to San Francisco, Venice, Lisbon, Brazil, South Africa, the Bahamas and Budapest. Their air fares and taxi fares ranged from £15,997 to Brazil and £14,518 to South Africa, to £2,238 to Budapest and £1,718 to Venice.
Lady Bourn did not accompany him on his latest trips, to Moldova on September 28 and to Khazakstan. The air fares were £1,117.50 and £2,107.20 respectively. Over the past six months, Sir John has spent £16,998 of taxpayers' money on mainly first class travel for himself and his wife.
Last night the NAO defended Sir John's dining and travel arrangements but announced that he would no longer take first class flights or travel with his wife without parliament approval.
A spokeswoman said: "We have decided to take the unprecedented step of volunteering all this information - even though nobody has requested all these details. We thought this would contribute to transparency and we intend to release all details of future expenditure on foreign trips and entertaining by Sir John and the senior management board of the NAO every six months."
She said many of the events were in return for entertainment at the NAO. "The auditor general justifies the dinners and lunches as part of the need for the NAO to keep in touch with a wide range of people, including companies that are doing business with government and the NAO."
Last night the revelations of the level of expenditure drew criticism from MPs and unions in Whitehall. Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents Whitehall's lowest paid civil servants, said: "Poorly paid civil servants who face losing their jobs due to so-called efficiency drives will be astounded at the amount spent on trips abroad and the inappropriateness of some of the lunches. With government departments facing budget cuts and slashing jobs over the next three years, you would think that those responsible for ensuring value for money would lead by example."
Kevan Jones, Labour MP for Durham, North and a member of the Commons defence committee, said: "Sir John is going find himself in a very difficult position as guardian of the public purse."
Lee Scott, Conservative MP for Ilford North, said: "I find it verging on the ridiculous, the level of hospitality taken at the taxpayers' expense when he is the guardian of the taxpayers' money."
Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat MP for Norfolk North, who asked the NAO to investigate the Norwich and Norfolk PFI, said Sir John should consider his position. "This behaviour is inappropriate and leaves him open to charges of conflict of interest."