The cost of running 10 Downing Street has trebled under Tony Blair, according to official figures.

The bill to taxpayers of running the Prime Minister’s office has jumped from £6 million a year under John Major to £17.8 million for the past financial year, the figures show. Inflation over the period amounts to 26 per cent.

The number of staff working for the Prime Minister has nearly doubled since Mr Blair came to power, the staff costs have nearly quadrupled, and the cost of running his press office has nearly trebled. The bill for hospitality at Downing Street and Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country residence, has also nearly tripled since 1997. It emerged yesterday that Downing Street has advertised for a butler on a salary of £50,000 a year. Officially termed a “house manager”, the person appointed will run the Downing Street staff and make sure visitors, including heads of state and other VIPs, feel well cared for.

Critics say that the remarkable rise in No 10’s budget reflects Mr Blair’s increasingly presidential style of government, with power concentrated in a large central office capable of controlling other government departments.

The figures were compiled by Oliver Heald, the Shadow Constitutional Affairs Secretary, who obtained the information through a series of parliamentary questions and Freedom of Information requests.

Mr Heald said: “While Gordon Brown’s NHS cuts bite deep in local maternity services and A&Es, millions of pounds are spent on bankrolling Tony Blair’s vast entourage of staff and spin doctors. Not only is such proliferate expenditure a questionable use of taxpayers’ money, but such a presidential-style office undermines collective Cabinet government and our parliamentary democracy.”

The trebling of the cost of No 10 is partly a result of the rise in staff costs, from £3.4 million a year in 1997 to £11.8 million last year. The number of staff working for the Prime Minister has risen from 121 when Mr Blair came to power, to 216 last year.

Downing Street first advertised for a butler in September. The position has yet to be filled, possibly because anyone accepting the job is likely to lose it as soon as Mr Blair shortly departs Downing Street.

The Prime Minister’s hospitality and entertainment bill has risen from £50,126 for the last year of Mr Major’s premiership, to £160,278 for 2005, the latest figures available. The bill for the Prime Minister’s press officers has risen from £597,240 in 1997-98 to £1.6 million in 2006-07.

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