Steps taken to record the gifts given to council officers have come under scrutiny in a new report.

The document reveals that a monitoring officer has written to council bosses reminding them to check all presents their staff receive are being noted, because of a wide gap in the number of gifts recorded by different departments.

The personal expenses of council chief executive Ged Curran were also revealed this week, after a Freedom of Information request by the Wimbledon Guardian.

They show he has spent £1,462.86 on entertainment, £923.30 on travel and £279.89 on books since March 2007.

Mr Curran declined a request to explain what the money had been spent on.

The gift list, released by the council’s standards committee, shows presents received between October 1, 2007 and March 31, 2009.

It suggests that officers’ drinks cabinets are well stocked - with bottles of wine, whiskey, ouzo, vintage ale and limoncello all appearing.

The most eye catching offer was that of a clay pigeon shoot, although this was refused by the officer who was approached. Baby clothes, a silk tie and ‘networking’ trips to the Royal Academy are also recorded.

The list claims that 69 gifts were offered in total, with eight refused.

Some 21 gifts were recorded by the corporate services department - and just one by the department for children, schools and families.

The agenda to a standards committee meeting, set to take place last Wednesday which contained the statistics, said: “These figures demonstrate that the levels of recorded declarations between the departments appear inconsistent.

"This could be that the registers accurately reflect low level of offers or it could demonstrate non compliance with the required procedure in certain departments.”

Mr Curran said the council had a “robust” system to monitor hospitality, which included regular internal audits by the standards committee and checks by independent external bodies.

He added: “The variation in the number of entries on the register will be due to a number of factors not least that the commercial private sector tends to target offers to particular sections of the council’s activities.

“There is always the possibility that there has been some under reporting and we are investigating this currently.”

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