Rugby final tickets and a complimentary cooking lesson with a celebrity chef: How the freebies flood in for the Beeb's top people

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A free cookery lesson with a Michelin-starred chef, a ticket for the Rugby World Cup final and plum seats at an Elton John concert.

These are just some of the freebies you can expect to receive as a senior executive at the BBC, a report by a parliamentary committee revealed yesterday.

It showed some of the perks on offer to corporation bosses such as director-general Mark Thompson and his deputy Mark Byford.

Mr Thompson, who last year was paid £788,000, was revealed to have accepted one day of tuition at Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons restaurant in Oxford.

Blanc stars in BBC2's reality TV series The Restaurant. But the corporation claimed that as the director general was not involved in commissioning the programme it was acceptable for him to have accepted the cookery lesson gift.

Mr Thompson also took hospitality at Cirque du Soleil and the Chelsea Flower Show in the period between January and December last year.

Mr Byford, who earned £437,000 last year, went a number of concerts for free, including seeing the White Stripes.

He also got a ticket for the Rugby World Cup final from the IMG sports rights company in October, although he did pay for travel and accommodation.

That same month he took up complimentary tickets from NFL for the game between Miami Dolphins and New York Giants at Wembley.

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In concert: Deputy Director General Mark Byford went to see the White Stripes

BBC Vision director Jana Bennett enjoyed a trip to The Brits and Wimbledon, from organisers of the events. Human resources boss Steve Kelly, whose remuneration was £268,000 last year, went to an England v Scotland rugby match with Accenture HR in February 2007.

The finance director, Zarin Patel, paid £386,000 last year, went to Elton John and Prince concerts with auditors KPMG.

John Beyer of pressure group Mediawatch UK yesterday was critical of the practice among senior BBC bosses.

He said: "It is one thing to declare this hospitality, but the trouble is you begin to ask where does it all end."