Holyrood runs up £36k bill

MOBILE phone bills totalling more than £36,000 were run up by staff working for ministers in the Scottish Government.

Of the total, around £16,000 was spent on call charges, which suggests that the remainder was spent on text messaging and using Blackberries to surf the internet, it was reported today.

The figures were released under the Freedom of Information Act, and show that the £36,030 bill for 2007-08 was £1525 higher than the previous year.

Ministerial support staff use a total of 83 mobile phones.