Police forces spend £½m every week on hire cars

Published on Friday 1 January 2010 21:59

POLICE forces are spending half a million pounds a week hiring cars, figures revealed yesterday.

Forces in Scotland, England and Wales spent 132 million on rental cars in the past five years. That averages out at more than 70,000 a day. The revelations come as forces are trying to save cash ahead of anticipated cuts in public spending.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne, who uncovered the figures, said: "At a time when police budgets are under extreme pressure, it seems unnecessarily lavish to be spending over 70,000 a day on hire cars.

"Hiring cars at appropriate times can save forces money but if they are being hired while police cars are not in use, it is simply a waste of taxpayers' money."

The totals were revealed in Freedom of Information Act requests to the 43 forces in England and Wales, the eight Scottish forces and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

In total, 132,312,000 has been spent on hire cars since 2004. The Metropolitan Police, the country's largest force, spent nearly 50 million on its own. West Midlands Police spent nearly 10m in the same period.

Of Scottish police, spending on hire cars was highest at the country's biggest force, Strathclyde, with 2,100,006. Next was Edinburgh-based Lothian and Borders on 1,177,371.58. Grampian spent 1,139,234, while Northern built up a car-hire bill of 509,732.22. Fife spent 270,222.23 while the UK's smallest police force, Dumfries and Galloway, shelled out 250,109. Tayside, with a bill of 152,344, and Central, which expended 104,154.70, spent the least on car hire. Matthew Elliot, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "If the bill for hire cars is going into the tens of millions, it's time the police looked again at their procurement strategy and started buying more cars.

"Everybody knows that it is more expensive in the long run to rent something so the police should economise and spend our money more wisely."

A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers said: "Transportation is key in policing and these figures reveal nothing about why hire cars may be used and provide good value for money.

"Obviously, marked police vehicles are used daily but some aspects of policing, such as covert work, need unmarked vehicles and hiring them can be cheaper rather than owning them."

&#149 The Scotsman revealed yesterday how police drivers have been blamed for hundreds of car crashes, including some in station car parks, costing taxpayers thousands of pounds.

Figures released for two Scottish forces showed that officers were at fault for more than two-thirds of crashes involving police vehicles over the last two years.

Mounting a kerb, hitting a boulder and striking animals on country roads were blamed for many accidents. And one patrol car was left damaged after hitting a flower pot at Spean Bridge, near Fort William, in December 2007.