Braintree Council executives charged more than £200,000 to ten corporate credit cards over the last four years.

Among the items purchased were £5,171 worth of sandwiches, cakes and other refreshments from supermarkets.

Spending figures reveal Braintree Council’s corporate hierarchy really does favour Tesco, with £2668 spent at the store, £578 more than they splashed out at rivals Sainsbury’s.

Executives also spent £1,690 on train fares when travelling to conferences across the country.

However, the vast majority of the £206,364 spent since 2010 went on court summonses for non-payment of council tax, costing the council £131,639.

Braintree Council has ten corporate credit cards which are issued to chief executive Nicola Beach, the three corporate directors and the heads of finance, audit, housing, operations and IT procurement.

See this week's Times for the full story.