The City of London Corporation incorrectly billed almost £11,600 in overseas travel expenses to an account partly funded by taxpayers before identifying the mistake and correcting it, newly published expenditure records show.
Among the wrongly coded costs were stays at a five-star hotel in Tokyo and luxury accommodation in Singapore, Beijing and Shanghai.
The Corporation has stressed that taxpayers did not ultimately pay the bills. Officials said the transactions were identified during a year-end financial review before being fully recharged to the correct account in April.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) uncovered the errors while reviewing the Corporation’s published expenditure records for 2025/26.
Under transparency rules, councils must publish details of spending above certain thresholds. The City of London Corporation publishes monthly expenditure of more than £500 relating to its local authority functions through its City Fund, which is financed partly through retained business rates and council tax. However, overseas promotional work is normally funded through the Corporation’s separate City’s Estate account rather than the City Fund.
The incorrectly coded payments were listed under the Mansion House department, the official residence of the Lord Mayor.
During the period covered by the accounts, Alderman Alastair King served as Lord Mayor before Alderwoman Susan Langley took over the role. The Lord Mayor undertakes regular overseas visits to promote the City of London and the wider UK financial services sector.
The expenditure records include:
- Foreign exchange fees totalling £265.61
- Goodwood Park Hotel – £638.52
- Hotel Diplomat – £578.06
- Radisson Blu Hotel – £5,630.19
- Shanghai New Union Building – £853.93
- Shangri-La Tokyo – £1,725.22
- Two payments to Taj Hotels totalling £1,583.44
- The St Regis Beijing – £312.58
The Radisson Blu payment was the single largest transaction identified.
A spokesperson for the Corporation said the travel related to promoting the UK’s financial and professional services sector rather than local authority business.
They confirmed that the expenditure had been recharged in full after the coding errors were discovered and that additional financial controls have since been introduced to prevent similar mistakes.
The spokesperson said: “These costs were not met by taxpayers. All costs relate to our international promotion of the UK’s financial and professional services sector, which is coordinated alongside the UK Government and industry.”
They added that the financial services sector contributes around 12% of the UK’s total tax receipts, worth approximately £110 billion, while supporting around 2.5 million jobs, with two-thirds based outside London.
The incident follows a separate case reported by the LDRS involving Hounslow Council, where staff mistakenly used council credit cards for personal purchases including haircuts, podcast subscriptions and greeting cards. Those costs were also repaid after the errors were identified.
