Zzzzzzz–Cars! Fuel blunders cost £60,000

More than £60,000 has been spent draining and repairing police vehicles in the past five years after the wrong type of fuel was pumped into their tanks.

Strathclyde Police, Scotland’s largest force, spent more than double the amount of any other force, running up a bill of £22,536 since 2007.

The force, which currently has 1,121 vehicles in its fleet, recorded 185 incidents of mis-fuelling in the five-year time frame.

Fife Constabulary recorded two instances, both in 2008, each costing £5,100, giving the force a total spend of £10,200. It said there had been no other incidents between 2007 and 2012.

Grampian Police, which has had a total of 76 mis-fuelling incidents since 1 April 2007, spent £9,936 fixing its vehicles. Lothian and Borders and Tayside forked out just over £5,600 each. However, while Tayside recorded 26 incidents, Lothian and Borders only had seven.

One incident in 2007 in the Lothian and Borders force area cost £5,221.53 and involved a BMW. The vehicle had been run after it was mis-fuelled, meaning it needed a complete new fuel system, tank, new fuel lines and injectors.

A spokeswoman said: “The job was carried out at a BMW dealer to keep the warranty valid, and therefore there were high labour costs as well.”

Central Scotland Police recorded 25 incidents since 2006, costing £5,339, while Dumfries and Galloway came in lowest of all the forces, with a bill of only £526 for ten incidents.

Northern Constabulary said it was unable to provide annual figures as they were not stored electronically, but said it believed the number of incidents was down to “one or two per year”, costing up to £150 each time.

It said: “The fleet manager notes that we have a reducing number of these incidents each year as officers are made more aware of the potential issues.”

The figures were obtained through a freedom of information request to all eight of Scotland’s police forces.

Lothian and Borders Police, which has 620 vehicles in its fleet, said: “The majority of Lothian and Borders vehicles are filled at a bunkered site, which is key controlled to the product. This eliminates mis-fuelling internally. In all cases the vehicles were diesel models and were incorrectly fuelled with petrol.”

Campaign group Taxpayer Scotland said such mistakes can cost police forces a “fortune” in cash and resources.

The group’s Robert Oxley said: “Simple measures such as reminders on fuel caps would help ensure officers don’t repeat this kind of avoidable error.”