Lyons claimed £251 taxi fare

Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, claimed £251.80 on a taxi to take him home from the London final of Strictly Come Dancing.

The taxi fare was included among expenses claims of £19,116 made over six months by Sir Michael from October 2008 to March this year.

The single biggest type of expense claimed by the chairman of the trust, which oversees how the BBC is run, was accommodation, including one bill of almost £280 for a single night in a London hotel. Overall he claimed £9,616 on accommodation.

Where possible, a trust spokeswoman said last night, the chairman travels by rail but the Strictly Come Dancing final, which was won lastDecember by Tom Chambers, the Holby City actor, ended too late for him to catch a train to his home in Birmingham.

Other long-distance cab fare claims included £386 from Birmingham to meet a group of drama writers in Liverpool and back home again, and a £351 return journey from Birmingahm to Cardiff where he was a guest speaker at a dinner.

His train fare claims for the six-month period, amounted to £5,379 but he ran up another £14,467 in car journeys charged separately. The figure included the £14,500 cost of having drivers available when he was in London.

His claims were made public alongside those of the other BBC trustees. They totalled £78,394, the smallest being £249 claimed by Anthony Fry over five months.