More than £42,000 of public money was spent on providing refreshments such as tea, biscuits and vol au vents at council meetings in Gloucester last year, it can be revealed today.

Figures released under Freedom of Information laws show that during 2007/08, the city council splashed out an average of more than £100 on food and drinks at every full council meeting, committee meeting and mayoral engagement.

Among the items on the menu for councillors were vol-au-vent, satay chicken sticks and cream cakes, as well as sandwiches, biscuits, tea and coffee.

Marcus Grodentz, spokesman for the council, said the expenditure reflected the workload of councillors. He said: "Gloucester is the county capital and also a cathedral city.

"As such it gets more calls upon it at member and civic level than perhaps some of the other county districts. Most councillors have full-time jobs and the vast majority of meetings have to take place in the evenings.

"Refreshments are provided as councillors wouldn't normally have time to get home first. What is served is a question of horses for courses.

"Sometimes, if a meeting is due to start at 5.30pm and councillors will likely be there until very late, we might provide something more than just your basic sandwiches and biscuits.

"But it is certainly not the case all the time."

Gloucestershire councils' combined refreshments bill between April 2005 and now topped £217,000. Gloucestershire County Council spent £58,026 over the past five years, although the annual outlay has dropped every year from a high of £27,000 in 2004/05 to £6,380 in 2007/08.

Leader of the council Barry Dare promised further cuts in the future.

He said: "Next year, the cost will fall even further, as I've stopped refreshments for cabinet meetings."

Forest of Dean District Council's bill came to £21,248 since 2005. Spokesman Tony Wisdom said councillors had to attend more than 200 meetings every year and often had to travel a long way to reach them.

He said: "I think if they couldn't expect a cup of tea and some refreshments when they got there, that wouldn't be very fair."

Tewkesbury Borough Council, which spent £11,778 over the four years, said it had recently stopped providing refreshments because of the spiralling bill, while Stroud District Council failed to reply to the Freedom of Information request.

Cheltenham Borough Council said it did not have the figures cost.

The revelations caused Susie Squire, campaign manager of the Taxpayers' Alliance, to attack the refreshments bill as a waste of money. She said: "It seems an outrageous amount of taxpayers' money to spend on food and drink."

WHAT WE SAY: Taxpayers do not want to hear money's being wasted