According to the data – which were released after the JEP asked why there had been such a lengthy delay to their publication – on 26 January 2020 a member of staff from the Office of the Chief Executive flew to New York’s JFK International Airport from Heathrow on a return business-class ticket costing £4,163.
The trip was taken by the group director of external relations to attend bi-lateral meetings with federal and state governments in New York, New Jersey and Washington DC.
Meanwhile, on 3 November 2019, a civil servant from the same department spent £3,583 on return multi-city business-class flights from Heathrow to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong to take part
in ‘international government and industry engagement’.
Following further inquiries, the government said that the flights were taken by the group director for financial services and digital economy who was supporting the Chief Minister on a visit to China.
There is no record of the Chief Minister’s travel costs exceeding £500 for either the January or China trips.
The government pledged to publish details of any travel expenses that exceeded £500 every six months after the JEP exclusively revealed in 2016 that two civil servants had spent £13,000 of taxpayers’ money on fully flexible business-class flights to South Africa.
However, figures for the period from July 2019 to December 2019 – which should have been published in June 2020 – were not released until recently following questions by this newspaper.
Figures for the period from January until June 2020 – the latest data available – were released at the same time.
The government said the delay had been due to the onset of the pandemic, which hit as the 2019 data was being collated.
Other expenses included in the latest release of information show that, in August 2019, the Health
Department spent £1,718 on a four-night stay at a hotel in Hamburg so that
staff could attend a conference. Further details about who stayed at the hotel have been requested by the JEP.
