WHAT do North Lanarkshire and Majorca have in common? Apparently, it takes two councillors and £1,400 to find out.

The visit to the balmy Mediterranean holiday destination “to improve Spanish Higher results” is one of dozens of “fact-finding” trips taken by councillors last year at a total cost to the taxpayer of more than £300,000.

Other jaunts to far-flung destinations included a trip by four North Lanarkshire officials to a music conference in Chicago, costing almost £5,000 and a visit to Miami by Highland council officials to “explore tourism opportunities” at a cost of £1,700.

Almost £8,600 was spent sending four councillors and nine officials from Aberdeenshire on a four-day trip to Greece, while neighbouring Aberdeen city council stumped up more than £3,000 for its globetrotting councillors to visit Canada as part of a “communities in bloom” scheme; Germany, for a Papal visit; New York, to join in the Tartan Week celebrations, and Mex-ico, as part of a “trade mission”.

Edinburgh city council paid for three council officials and one police officer to visit Dublin to observe the smoking ban, while Angus organised two trips to China for three councillors, three officials and a “golf consultant” at a cost of more than £11,000 in order to “develop business and tourism opportunities”.

Aberdeenshire council and Shetland Isles council spent the most on sending their members and staff abroad, each running up bills of more than £47,000, while Labour-led North Lanarkshire wasn’t far behind, with a total foreign travel bill of almost £31,000. The figures contrast sharply with East Renfrewshire, which did not pay for any overseas trips.

Labour-led Glasgow city council, Scotland’s largest local authority, refused to disclose how much it had spent sending councillors and officials abroad, citing the excessive cost of collating the information.

Renfrewshire also declined to supply details.

“At a time that council tax is increasing so quickly, councillors should be very careful before they plan foreign junkets,” said Matthew Elliot, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance. “Obviously there are some cases in which councillors need to travel abroad but more often than not they use taxpayers’ money to organise trips which could be better done by video conferencing or simply picking up the telephone.

“Most of these trips are just an excuse to get on a foreign junket and have a free holiday. Councillors from all parties like to have their freebie holidays and they see it as a perk of their job.”

However, councils defended the amount of money they had spent, claiming the visits raised the profile of their regions and benefited residents.

John O’Hagan, executive director of corporate services at North Lanarkshire council, said the visit to the Balearic island had helped improve Spanish higher results and the jaunt to Chicago had been in an invaluable opportunity to examine “different approaches to delivering music programmes in schools”.

Aberdeenshire council said its various overseas missions had allowed it to foster “important relationships with various European bodies, which bring a lot of benefits to the northeast”.

“They also allow us to put across Aberdeenshire’s and the northeast’s view on important issues, such as the maritime industry,” a spokesman added.

Morgan Goodland, chief executive of Shetland council, said: “These trips were predominantly fishery, maritime and environmental related and were very significant for Shetland. All of these are very important for a small island community.”

A spokeswoman for Edinburgh council said the trip to Dublin was “an invaluable fact-finding mission”.

Aberdeen city council and Highland council declined to comment.

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