THE resort is best known for hosting Hollywood stars, but last March the high rollers in Cannes were of an altogether different ilk.

Among the luxury yachts in the harbour was Powder-monkey, a 100ft vessel with five en-suite cabins used by council officials from Nottingham attending Mipim, one of the world’s biggest property conventions. The 10-man delegation, led by Michael Frater, chief executive of Nottingham city council, had splashed out £20,000 of public money in order to entertain potential investors.

Moored nearby was Sunliner X, an even bigger yacht boasting four state rooms, which had been rented by delegates from Liverpool. The city council and local quangos had spent almost £150,000 on sending staff to the French Riviera, ostensibly to drum up trade over three days.

The trips are among a long list of overseas junkets uncovered by The Sunday Times on which councils have lavished more than £1m of taxpayers’ money over the past two years.

According to financial accounts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, 150 local authorities have paid for officials and councillors to be sent abroad — sometimes with their spouses in tow.

They include an official from Medway council, in Kent, who attended the Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing at a cost of £17,500; staff at Bournemouth council who spent three weeks in Australia and New Zealand studying surfing facilities; and the lord mayor of Leeds who took his wife on a £5,000 twinning trip to South Africa.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, a pressure group, said: “A lot of trips are now more to do with a free holiday at the council’s expense than legitimate council activity.

“Council-tax-payers have seen their bills double over the past 10 years and it’s not surprising when you see where the money has been going.”

Six officials from Leeds city council also travelled to Cannes last year, at a cost of £13,000. They included Paul Rogerson, the council’s chief executive, who racked up a hotel bill of £1,200 for just two nights.

Representatives of Hammersmith and Fulham council, in west London, appeared to book their flights so late that they were charged £2,640 for four return tickets to the south of France by easyJet, the no-frills airline.

All the councils attending Mipim justified their expenditure by claiming that the event attracts inward investment.

Other local authorities appear to have used last summer’s Olympics in China as an excuse for sending staff across the globe.

Helen Cockersole, the deputy 2012 manager at Medway council, enjoyed a £12,000 trip to Beijing last August organised by Visit Britain and the British Olympic Association. The council she represents is not hosting any sporting events during the London Games but hopes to set up a training camp for overseas athletes in three years’ time.

One trip, it seems, was not enough for Cockersole, and the council paid for her to fly back to the Paralympics two weeks later at a cost of £5,500. By contrast, the London borough of Newham, home to the main venues for the 2012 Olympics, spent £10,679 on sending four officials to Beijing last year.

Among Britain’s most well-travelled council officials is Brian Cleasby, the former lord mayor of Leeds. Although his home city is 200 miles from London, Cleasby and four officials flew to Beijing in December 2007 to explore the possibility of setting up a pre-2012 training camp in Leeds. The trip, which included a civic visit to Hangzhou, cost £5,800; Cleasby flew business class while the other officials slummed it in economy.

Two months earlier, taxpayers stumped up £4,832 for Cleasby and his wife, Jo, to fly business class to Durban, the South African city that is twinned with Leeds and renowned for its warm climate and surf.

Cleasby, 71, whose term as mayor expired last year, admitted the flights to China and South Africa were expensive. He blamed council officials for booking late, claiming that up to £2,000 could have been saved by shopping around. However, he insisted it was right that he should have travelled in business class.

“I think, given the level of the importance of the lord mayor in the city, it is not excessive,” Cleasby said. “What was wrong is that it was not done cost-effectively.”

Barking and Dagenham, Southampton and West Devon councils have also picked up the tab for wives accompanying mayors on twinning trips.

Other costly visits funded by the public purse included a three-week fact-finding mission by Bournemouth officials to Australia and New Zealand. Roger Brown, a leisure services director, and two colleagues spent £8,400 studying surf reefs in the two countries.

Bournemouth is creating Britain’s first artificial surf reef in a bid to attract tourists to the south coast.

Perhaps the most bizarre use of taxpayers’ money involved a £963 grant for an official and five volunteers from Maidstone, in Kent, to be sent to a museum in Krakow, Poland. Their mission: to “assess condition of bird taxidermy and learn new methods of preservation”.

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