WAG spent a shocking £5 million on civil service hire cars

Cymraeg
English

Kirsty Williams AM <info@kirstywilliams.org.uk>

WAG spent a shocking £5 million on civil service hire cars - Kirsty

June 11, 2009 12:00 AM

Research uncovered by the Welsh Liberal Democrats reveals that the WAG spent £5 million over the last five years on hire cars for civil servant use.

After the First Minister failed to provide a sufficient reply through the normal channels AMs use to ask questions, the Welsh Liberal Democrats were forced to use the Freedom of Information Act to extract the information.

The Welsh government has had a vehicle hire contract with Europcar UK Ltd for the past 5 years and it has been available for use by Welsh government staff.

Yearly spend on Europcar hire:

2004 - £958,708

2005 - £990,699

2006 - £924,123

2007 - £1,188,367

2008 - £1,040,613

Total £5,102,510

Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats said:

"I am very concerned that spending on hire cars for the Welsh government staff has come to £5 million over 5 years. At a time when Welsh businesses and the people of Wales have to really tighten their belts, this Labour-Plaid government have increased their spending on civil service car hire.

"Of course, I understand that civil servants need to travel across Wales to attend meetings but £1 million a year is an extortionate amount of money to spend on this.

"The Welsh government has a responsibility to make sure our Welsh pound is spent wisely and has the biggest impact possible. They need to increase their use of video conferencing to reduce travel for civil servants and when the technology is not available the Welsh government should have a pool of low carbon energy efficient cars to reduce the amount they spend on civil servant travel and play their part in lowering CO2 emissions in Wales."

Kirsty added:

"This Labour-Plaid government knows very well that spending this amount of money on civil servant travel is outrageous as they failed to provide the information to me when I asked for it through normal channels provided to Assembly Members. I had to resort to the Freedom of Information Act to extract this information; something which I think is also unacceptable."