Serial attender: Licensing sessions gives chairman top record across the whole region

He went to 132 meetings out of 136 at which he was expected, during the municipal year of 2009 to 2010 – an attendance record of 97 per cent. Coun Skelton chairs the council's licensing board and received 19,350.89 in allowances and expenses over the last financial year.

"I chair the licensing committee and if every meeting was held we'd have three meetings a week – they don't even stop during August," he said. "Effectively there could be three meetings a week, which is quite a task.

"The problem is that everything is time limited on licensing and if we don't hold the meeting within two months within the end of the consultation then it will be automatically granted.

"So that's the reason for licensing having so many meetings – plus, in the current climate there are a lot of people putting in for variations."

He became a Suffolk councillor in 1993 after leaving the Army, and went to university as a mature student before standing for election as a councillor in Sheffield in 2004.

He said he was "surprised" by the Yorkshire Post's findings.

"I don't have a full time job so it gives me more time to be at meetings," he added. "I don't think I work any harder than any other councillor.

"I think my attendance figure is going to go up this year. In the first five months of this year we didn't have a deputy chair on the licensing committee so I probably attended just about every meeting."