Call to regulate quango expenses

The waterfront at Cannes - once a year haunt of the movie elite - is one of the world's holiday destinations of choice.

And each year the resort in the South of France is also home to Mipim, a major gathering of international property developers, just five days before the famous film festival. It was seen as an ideal event where representatives from the South East Development Agency (Seeda) could court property developers in a quest to build an international conference centre at Ashford in Kent.

At face value, if schmoozing with international property developers in waterfront cafes or champagne parties on yachts secures lucrative business, the £190k to send 13 people to the event might be seen as money well spent. However, no centre has been built so far and BBC File On 4 has yet to find any firm proposals for a centre apart from a Seeda chief executive's report dating back to 2003 mentioning potential developers

Chauffeur-driven

The 2005 Rugby League Challenge Cup Final saw Hull record a shock 25-24 points victory over Super League champions Leeds. But a bigger shock might be the cost of a ride home from the final for Steven Broomhead, chief executive of the North West Regional Development Agency (NWDA).

File On 4 has discovered Mr Broomhead, who is also vice chairman of Warrington Wolves Rugby League Club, got a chauffeur-driven trip from the Millennium Stadium back to the North West for himself and a friend at the taxpayer's expense. The owner of an executive car business confirmed that one of his drivers took Mr Broomhead and a friend to the match from their Cardiff hotel, and after the game drove hundreds of miles dropping the friend off at Warrington, before taking the NWDA's boss to his home in Preston, Lancashire.

This trip cost £395.

The following year Mr Broomhead, who has a company car, received a similar chauffer-driven ride when the final was held at Twickenham in London

Hear the full story on BBC Radio 4: File On 4 Sunday 2 March at 1700 GMT or online at the File on 4 website.

Why is all this important? Because without the scrutiny of the average man in the street, these maliciously evil parasites would walk all over you. Mr Broomhead lives in Preston and should be made to account for his excesses. You can guarantee that local politicians or nudepapers will definitely not.