A former West Midlands transport chief has offered to help Birmingham City Council cut its train fare costs - starting by banning first class travel.
Richard Worrall volunteered to act as an unpaid consultant by suggesting a variety of ways that council officials and councillors could obtain cheaper train tickets.
Mr Worrall, a former Walsall Labour councillor who chaired the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority for more than ten years, said it was wrong for public servants to be "swanning around" in first class carriages.
His intervention followed the disclosure that council finance officers have ordered a £50,000 cut in Birmingham's £300,000 annual rail bill.
The council is refusing to say how many first class trips were made during 2005.
Mr Worrall said one of his first decisions on becoming chairman of WMPTA was to insist on standard class rail travel for all members and officers.
He added: "I have written to the leader of Birmingham City Council offering my services free, gratis and for nothing.
"I would be pretty confident of achieving savings of more than £50,000 with no serious hardship at all, although first class travel would simply have to go."
Mr Worrall said The Birmingham Post was right to point out that the council has data on travel costs easily available.
He said: "Every authority has to track and account for these costs in detail - though, as apparently in this case, they prefer the public not to have this information.
"The claim that will be made, as it always is, is that senior officers have to travel first class because they need privacy and space to work. But that is a very lame excuse. Plenty of business people work quite well in standard class."
