BBC bosses spent £363,000 claimed from expense accounts over the past five years, with money from licence-fee payers being used for a £1,277 private jet trip for its director-general and a £99.99 bottle of vintage champagne given to Bruce Forsyth on his 80th birthday.

Mark Thompson, the director general, and the BBC’s other top ten executives spent more than £4,278 on flowers and champagne to reward highly paid stars; £54,971 on hotels in places ranging from Beverly Hills to Cannes; and £2,412 on taxis, which they claimed back from the public broadcaster.

The BBC also revealed that 47 of its employees were paid more than £200,000, with little-known executives such as Sharon Baylay, the director of marketing, paid between £310,000 and £340,000, compared with the £250,000 to £280,000 paid to the prominent controller of BBC One, Jay Hunt.

Forced to publish details after a string of Freedom of Information Act inquiries by journalists, Mr Thompson said that the public had a “right to know” what BBC executives spent, prompting another uncomfortable day for the Corporation, after scandals about TV fakery and on-air bullying by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross.

A Cessna light aircraft was used to help to fly Mr Thompson back from a family holiday in New England for a single day to attend an emergency meeting in London in 2004. Ironically, the purpose of the meeting was to discuss how to handle an internal investigation over allegations about expenses claims made by the creative director, Alan Yentob.

The BBC also paid £2,236 to fly Mr Thompson’s wife and two children back from Sicily last October, after he was forced to cut short another family holiday to deal with the Brand and Ross affair. He cited concerns about his family’s safety in the Italian countryside.

However, although the published figures contained few redactions of the kind seen on MPs’ expenses, large areas of information remained undisclosed. None of the expenses incurred by BBC executives using the Corporation’s central booking system were revealed yesterday — and, as expected, the BBC continues to refuse to publish how much stars earn or take as expenses.

Ross, who is reported to earn £6 million a year from the BBC, claimed yesterday that he would be willing to remain with the Corporation for less pay. “I will happily stay at the BBC for less money,” he wrote on his Twitter site. “I turned down a fortune to stay last time, believe it or don’t, and the flak is . . . unfortunate,” he added.

With the row over MPs’ expenses fresh in the public mind, the timing of the publication was difficult for the BBC. The Corporation escaped intense criticism from politicans mindful of the furore that surrounded their own expense claims.

Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative Culture spokesman, whose party wants the BBC to publish the exact pay of Ross and John Humphrys, complained that the disclosures did not go far enough. “It’s not just the top ten or top 100 people who should disclose their expenses — all the BBC employees are part of a public organisation. What we did at Westminster shows what happens when you don’t disclose expenses — you lose public trust.”

Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat Culture, Media and Sport spokesman, said: “The veil must be lifted even farther so that the public can judge whether they are getting good value for money. As the MPs’ expenses scandal has shown, transparency is the best driver of high standards.”

Mr Thompson promised further disclosure, including detailed expenses claims and receipts submitted by the top 100 staff. He also made a concession on stars’ pay, promising that the BBC would publish “the total amount we spend on talent”, estimated by him previously at £72 million a year.

Defending the £6 million pay package to Ross and other stars, Mr Thompson said that “disclosure of this kind is likely to lead, not to better value for money” but “fresh upward pressure on pay”, saying that Graham Norton or Anne Robinson or others could not be described as “public decision-makers or public officers of the BBC”.

Nevertheless, the BBC expenses files offered a window into how stars are treated, with repeated gifts of £49 bouquets of flowers and champagne at as much as £100 a bottle — although the latter was banned in October 2008. Terry Wogan, the Radio 2 breakfast show presenter, and some friends were entertained by Jenny Abramsky, then the controller of the BBC’s radio division, at a cost of £1,137 to the licence fee payer, to celebrate his knighthood. The location was not disclosed.

Ministers refused all requests for interviews yesterday, and officials said that the responsibility for dealing with expenses and financial matters rested with the BBC Trust.

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