Cornwall county councillors, who are paid 50p a mile for driving their own cars to meetings, may be overclaiming thousands of pounds a year more than they are entitled to, a Packet investigation has revealed.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Packet has acquired copies of expenses claim forms submitted by the 82 county councillors over a three-month period last year and these have been analysed by comparing them to AA and RAC mileage data.

The investigation reveals that many councillors are claiming they have travelled more miles than the shortest route mapped for the Packet by either the AA or RAC. If the AA and RAC data is correct, figures for one month alone show that councillors claimed for up to 1,700 miles that they did not travel.

This would have added £853 to the expenses bill of £13,000 for just the one month that the Packet audited. If the figures for this one month are projected over a full year, county councillors are being paid about £156,000 a year in mileage expenses and could be overclaiming by as much as £10,000.

The 50p a mile payments that councillors receive for using their own cars have already been criticised as being over-generous. Last year an unsuccessful attempt was made by some councillors to reduce the mileage rate. They pointed out that motoring organisations say that an average car costs around 38p a mile to run and councillors are therefore making a profit every time they drive to a meeting.

The request to reduce mileage rates prompted a full review of the allowances and expenses paid to councillors. But, instead of producing a saving for Cornwall's taxpayers, the council eventually voted to double the allowances paid to senior members, adding £160,000 a year to costs. The mileage allowance was left untouched at 50p.

The expenses claim forms seen by the Packet reveal that David Whalley, leader of the Liberal-Democrat controlled council, claimed for travelling more than 6,000 miles over a three-month period last year.

This means he would have picked up expenses of about £1,000 a month on top of his annual allowance of £19,305 - due to be increased to £32,655 later this year.

For full report see this weeks Falmouth/Penryn Packet