Taxi Driver Online

Lancashire police spends £500k on hire cars


Lancashire police has spent more than £500,000 on private hire cars in the past financial year, new figures have revealed.

Lancashire Constabulary was the biggest spender in the North West, splashing out £529,285 on the cars from April 2015 to March 2016, according to the Home Office.

They were followed by Cheshire, who spent £209,474, and Merseyside, who spent £206,084.

Cumbria Constabulary splurged £164,302 on private hire cars, while Greater Manchester Police forked out £87,411 over the same period.

In total the five forces spent £1,196,556, according to the figures, which were revealed in a parliamentary question tabled by Preston Labour MP Mark Hendrick.

Home Office Minister Brandon Lewis said: “The Government continues to support forces to drive down procurement expenditure and to encourage greater collaboration between police forces and with other public sector bodies and emergency services.

“We believe that significant savings can be achieved through shared or collaborative procurement.”

He said research showed a wide disparity in how much it cost forces to hire cars and said efforts were being made to drive down costs by improving procurement and planning.

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Spending so much on hire cars smacks of bad organisation and it is important that the constabularies explain why they use them and why the prices they paid vary so widely.

“Not only does poor planning lead to higher costs, local taxpayers will be fed up with seeing their hard-earned money wasted on avoidable situations like this.

“The bill for these hire cars is over £3,000 per day so it is vital that all forces negotiate hard to deliver better value for money for taxpayers.”

A Lancashire Constabulary spokesman said: “We are currently reviewing our use of hire vehicles to ensure that we provide value for money.

“Having said that we always assess the cost of using of hire cars against the fixed costs of providing a car allowance and other transport costs which in the longer term often proves more expensive.”

source: http://www.lep.co.uk/news/crime/lancash ... -1-8177133

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

£1450 a day on private hire cars a day, probably not that much really.

140 £10 fares a day maybe.

14 cars doing 10 fares a day.

Cost of hiring 14 full time drivers doing the same work, plus holiday cover, pension, lease fees on cars, tax,insurance, maintenance, uniforms, far more than £1450 a day.

Basic minimum wage for 14 drivers would be over £250k a year for starters.

According to my calculations, 14 cars would cost around £30,000 a year each is £420k, plus spare vehicles to cover maintenance, so total minimum cost of doing it in-house would be £670k a year. Oh, and I forgot to add any of the admin or back room staff that would go with that.

What's the problem? It's the cheapest way to deal with their transport requirements.

Lot of assumptions in there. A bit like TT and his full time school transport drivers. It is on hell of an assumption that the jobs would be spread evenly through the day so that each car could actually do the requisite 10 jobs. It is more likely that these cars are needed mainly at the same time s every day and so 14 cars wouldn't be able to do the work.
It would help if there was some information regarding what these journey's were for.

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Grandad,

probably getting staff home after late finishes and after public transport finished or early mornings or even giving people lifts home after giving statements instead of tying up a patrol car and officer. Besides which are we really objecting to work being put our way ?

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

I don't think it is us that are complaining.

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Grandad,

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IDFIMH

Yes, I've had to make assumptions as no figures are given about how many journeys at what times, but what I've said puts everything into perspective. If they start using cop cars the price would be higher. you have the increased initial cost of a cop car, 2 cops wages at whatever-they-get an hour, certainly far more than a cabbie.

food for thought.