Police criticised for spending £600,000 on foreign travel

Sending police musicians to Australia cost taxpayers more than £31,000, and a single flight from Rhodes in Greece cost almost £2000.

Scottish Tories said the amount of money spent was "startling" and it would be better used for frontline policing at home.

Taxpayer groups said the refusal in many cases to reveal the reason for travel created the impression officers were taking "jollies" to holiday hotspots.

The spending of £582,870 between 2008/09 and 2011/12 was revealed after a Freedom of Information request to all eight former police forces in Scotland.

Strathclyde Police spent £413,547 on 322 trips to 30 different destinations.

The spending included £90,000 on 66 trips to Spain, £60,000 on 34 trips to the US and £31,572 for a pipe band trip to Australia.

Other trips totalling thousands of pounds saw officers visit India, Singapore, the Philippines, Peru, the Czech Republic, India and New Zealand.

Trips costing £22,000 were said to be for conferences, more than £6000 went on seminars, meetings and courses, and nearly £4000 of trips were listed under "miscellaneous".

The former Lothian and Borders force spent £145,303 travelling to 81 destinations in total but refused to reveal the purpose of any of the trips.

As well as spending £25,539 on a trip to Bangkok and £15,967 on one to Sydney, it spent a further £8754 visiting Beijing. Other destinations included New Delhi, New York, Lyon, Venice, Zurich, Brazil, Qatar and Vienna.

Lothian and Borders officers also made nine trips to Amsterdam – five alone in 2009.

Central Scotland spent just more than £5000 on two trips in 2012 for "identification".

Two Central officers were sent to Rhodes in September last year, with half the total cost going on a return flight via Athens and Heathrow. Two officers also visited Geneva in August last year, running up accommodation costs of more than £1700 for a two-night stay.

The former Fife Constabulary spent £10,232 on foreign travel and Dumfries and Galloway almost £9000.

Both Grampian and Northern Constabularies said they had not sent any staff member abroad within the time period.

Tayside was alone in refusing to respond, citing the costs of dealing with the information request.

Scottish Conservative chief whip John Lamont MSP said: "With police budgets being stretched further and further in recent times, it is startling to see that so much money has been spent on travelling to these far- flung locations.

"No matter what the purpose of these trips, many people will rightly believe that this money would have been better spent on frontline policing and fighting crime."

Taxpayer Scotland spokesman Eben Wilson said it was "utterly wrong for any police force to refuse to state clearly why these trips were made".

He said: "If there are security considerations, they can tell us that, but to stay quiet simply raises the suspicions that these are jollies at taxpayers' expense.

"With the advent of our new national police force, being honest and open about how our taxes are being spent has become doubly important. This is our money that is being spent."

A Police Scotland spokesman said: "Police officers may require to travel abroad for many reasons, ranging from operational activity to training and development purposes. All such cases are subject to business case processes and approval from senior management in the organisation.

"Travel – and accommodation – is booked on the basis of best value for the organisation, and trips must be justified as having benefit to the service or operational purpose."

Sam Whyte