A senior BBC executive has been accused of claiming frivolous expenses, after it emerged he'd spent £800 on just seven taxi journeys.
The BBC's Controller of Entertainment Commissioning, Mark Linsey, reclaimed an average of £113 for each of the journeys, the most expensive of which was an eye-watering £142 - the equivalent of the TV licence fee extorted from a single parent trying to make ends meet.
Expenses published on the BBC website show that Mr Linsey, who presumably doesn't like making telephone calls, made several other taxi journeys "to discuss ideas" with colleagues.
He additionally spent several nights at the £110 per night Hilton DoubleTree in Manchester Piccadilly, when presumably the £60 per night Premier Inn, only 2 minutes walk away, would have served exactly the same purpose.
Jonathan Isaby, Chief Executive of The TaxPayers' Alliance, told the Daily Mail: "It takes some doing to run up a bill of this extraordinary size, and licence fee payers will be furious that their hard-earned cash is being frittered away so readily.
"The BBC is a national organisation so some travel is inevitable, but there has got to be some restraint when it comes to costs. The BBC should find cheaper ways of getting staff around the country, or sympathy for the TV tax will continue to wane."
The BBC claims to have reduced taxi expenses by almost a fifth since 2009/10.
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