One of my bugbears with public organisations is the huge amount that is spent on committees (and management too) - first class travel, 4 or 5 star hotels and in many cases a daily rate for attending committees or events.

I currently hold a public appointment and always request standard class train journeys and give enough time for tickets to be booked in advance to keep the costs down. I was a stakeholder representative a few years ago for another committee which seemed even more wasteful with luxuries that we can really get by without, but that comes from some kind of middle class elitism rather than poor planning.

In the back of my head, always, is - "this is public money"...