Taxpayers have paid for council workers to go to theme parks, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

The request was submitted to find out how much time and money had been spent on team building activities at Braintree Council in the last five years.

It revealed in July 2006, the council spent £1,052.74 on two trips as “a reward” to employees.

Twenty two staff were taken to Thorpe Park and 15 were taken to Chessington.

A council spokesman said: “Both of these trips were offered as one-off rewards to teams in recognition of the extraordinary amount of time and effort that they had put in to ensuring that new and complex computer systems were installed and made operational."

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