British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will return to the treasury more than £12,000 of public funds he spent on the services of a cleaner, the Prime Minister's Office has announced.

On Monday, as the country's parliament met for the first time after the summer break, all MPs in the House of Commons received the results of an independent audit of parliamentary expenses that was launched in the summer.

The scandal over unjustified expenses of members of the lower house of the British parliament flared up after the Daily Telegraph published a short article in May about British Prime Minister Brown paying for a cleaning lady at the expense of the treasury. This was followed by a series of publications revealing what taxpayers' money was spent on. MPs bought dog food and duck houses at the expense of the treasury, renovated their homes and their families - spent money on things that had nothing to do with their professional activities.

The newspaper published new incriminating material every day for six weeks, which resulted in a major political crisis in the country. Brown's failure to deal with the scandal led to a wave of criticism of the government and the prime minister himself. As a result, several ministers resigned, and Brown was forced to reshuffle the government.

Most MPs agreed to provide full disclosure of their spending and return some funds to the Treasury. However, after Brown announced reform of the expenses reimbursement system and the need to make it more transparent, the House of Commons brought in independent auditors, led by former civil servant Sir Thomas Legg. Legg sent the results of the audit personally to MPs, notifying each by how much they had exceeded reasonable limits and how much would need to be returned to the Treasury.

Brown, who has been paying for the cleaner since 2004, said ahead of the audit that he would be happy to refund anything that would be seen as an abuse of his reimbursement powers. The auditors recommended he repay £12,415.

As reported by the BBC, the leader of the "third" most popular Liberal Democrat party, Nick Clegg, will also have to recoup the money spent - he has been recommended to return to the treasury 910 pounds sterling out of 3.9 thousand spent on the improvement of the garden from 2006 to 2009. The leader of the opposition Conservative Party, David Cameron, who had previously returned 218 pounds sterling spent on partial repayment of the mortgage, has been recommended to provide auditors with additional information about his expenses on the purchase of housing.

Auditors say MPs should be limited to £1,000 a year on gardening and no more than £2,000 on cleaning services.

Gordon Brown to return £12,000 spent on cleaner to Treasury