Distance travelled by vehicles in the Government Car Service: EIR release

Information requested

1. In each year since 2020-21, including the current year to date, how many kilometres have been travelled by vehicles in the Government Car Service? Please provide rough estimates if exact data is not available.

2. If possible, could this also be broken down by Government Minister?

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reason why the Scottish Government does not hold data on how many kilometres have been travelled by vehicles in the Government Car Service for years 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 as this information has been routinely destroyed prior to the date of your request. We are also unable to provide estimates, as these are not held, nor is it possible to provide journey kilometres per Government Minister. All vehicles and drivers are operated as shared resources, and as a consequence frequently cover multiple customers throughout the day. We therefore do not record journey distances for individual Ministers.

This exception is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about how many kilometres have been travelled by vehicles in the Government Car Service for years 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23, rough estimates of distances travelled and journey kilometres per Minister, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

Government Car Service (GCS) fleet kilometres (Km’s) covered for 2023/24 and 2024/25 up until 26 March 2025.

Year	Total Km’s covered by GCS fleet
2023/24	697,762
2024/25 (until 26/03/25)	642,110

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.