Cash-strapped council Brighton and Hove City Council spent almost £3,500 sending one of its officials on a four-day trip to Switzerland.

The foreign hop is one of 29 on which Brighton and Hove City Council spent £27,624 in eight months.

In the whole of the previous financial year it spent just over £12,000.

Meanwhile, council tax payers face a 14.5 per cent hike in their bills in April while £6 million in cuts to services must be made to balance the budget.

The costs for overseas travel for the first eight months of the 2001/02 financial year were revealed in response to a written question tabled by Liberal Democrat councillor Mark Barnard.

He said: "There is no way the council can justify spending these huge sums on sending one person on a junket."

The trips include:

£3,497 sending the officer to a conference and travel show in Geneva, Switzerland
£2,233 on sending an officer to a Vacation.com convention in Atlanta, USA
£1,499 for an officer's trip to the International Congress Conventions Association conference in Mexico
£1,333 for sending former mayors Harry Steer and Brian Fitch to Yokahama, Japan, for the World Mayors for Peace Conference and the International Association of Peace Messenger Cities convention.

We calculated the cost of a three-night stay in the Swiss capital, including flights and transfers, at just under £350.

A return coach trip to Stansted on National Express costs £35, a return flight with Monarch airlines is £119 and three nights' B&B at the three-star Hotel Windsor in the city centre costs £173.48 with a £10 return train fare to the airport.

Coun Barnard, who represents Hove, condemned the spending as an "appalling waste of money" by a council already over budget.

He said: "How can a four- day trip to Geneva for one person cost almost £3,500? I would love to know what the money was spent on."

In some cases, he said, up to 23 officers at a time had been sent on social care and health training exchange trips to France.

He said: "Surely one or two officers could be sent and then they could pass on what they had learnt to their colleagues when they returned.

"Discussion documents and decisions from conferences are usually posted on the internet these days. Perhaps that would be a cheaper way of keeping up to date than sending someone half way around the world on a freebie."

A council spokeswoman said: "We understand the concerns expressed about council spending and keep costs of overseas trips as low as possible. However, these trips are an essential opportunity to generate income and boost the local economy.

"The trip to Geneva was to participate and exhibit in the European Incentives Business Travel and Meetings Industry exhibition.

"This was a chance to target the many international conference organisers and key decision-makers present, who we encouraged to hold events in Brighton and Hove.

"We shared a stand with Bournemouth and Harrogate, as part of the British Tourist Authority area at the exhibition, in order to keep the costs down."

Councillor Fitch, who has a £2,000-a-year allowance for membership and attendance at the Association of Peace Messenger Convention, said: "Harry just attended the World Mayors for Peace Conference and I went on to the conventions in Hiroshama and Nagasaki.

"We travelled via Europe as the flights are cheaper, stayed in a basic hotel, and I bought a Japanese rail travel card for my journey. We kept the costs down.

"The Peace Messenger Cities forges links between cities all over the world. Schools and charitable organisations in Brighton and Hove have benefited from the work."