The drinks are on us: Whitehall's wining and dining bill costs the taxpayer £5m

More than £100,000 of the cash went on maintaining an exclusive Whitehall wine cellar.

Even the Department for International Development - responsible for distributing aid to the world's poorest countries - managed to spend more than £260,000.

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In total, the £5million could have paid for 230 extra nurses, 190 teachers, 70 doctors, 170 police officers or 190 soldiers.

Embarrassingly, the biggest spender on Whitehall parties was the Treasury, which is struggling to contain an economic crisis caused by the credit crunch.

It and its associated departments spent £1.2million on alcohol and entertaining last year.

That was 20 times more than the Department for Work and Pensions and 100 times more than the Department for Children, Schools and Families, according to a series of Parliamentary answers.

The Foreign Office, meanwhile, revealed £108,000 was spent on "wine cellar costs" for ministers.

It is responsible for maintaining an exclusive wine store used for hospitality across government, which entertains 30,000 guests at more than 300 events a year.

It supplies everything from dinners at Chequers, the Prime Minister's country residence, to departmental receptions.

There are around 39,000 bottles stashed away in the cellar, which is in the vaults of Lancaster House, off the Mall in London.

Its exact contents are a closely-guarded secret, although it is said to offer 180 individual clarets alone.

The shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Philip Hammond, said: "Hard-working families struggling to make ends meet will be surprised, to say the least, that Gordon Brown chooses to lavish millions on parties for civil servants while clobbering low-income families with yet more tax rises."

The second-highest spending department was that for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, which notched up a bill for £1million.

Foreign Office minister Meg Munn told MPs her department's total bill for catering, including food, staff, flowers, provision of sound equipment and alcohol, was £700,814.

The cost of keeping the Government wine cellar generously stocked took its total to £809,529.

She said all expenditure had gone on entertaining "official contacts" and was in line with Treasury rules.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was next, with a £405,482 bill, followed by the Department for Communities and Local Government, at £388,292. But some of the smaller amounts will also raise eyebrows.

The International Development Department spent £265,360, while spending by the Scotland Office - which critics say is the most pointless department of all - went up by a third to £23,441.

Despite powers being devolved to the Scottish Executive, the department employed 20 policy officials and two Press officers.

They are responsible for answering correspondence, but received fewer than 40 letters from MPs and peers last year.

The department says last year's spending on entertainment included the London launch of the Scottish Poppy Appeal and a reception on the day of the Queen's Birthday Parade.

Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance campaign group, said: "Taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for an office and staff who are a relic of the pre-devolution era."

The bill for all the departments that answered was £4,828,892. But the total will be higher since several refused to answer or have yet to do so.

The Department of Health, for example, said a "considerable manual exercise" would be necessary to separate out how much had been spent on entertaining as opposed to "internal meetings and staff subsistence".

Health minister Ben Bradshaw simply said that staff were told their expenditure should be "modest and in keeping with the occasion".