Cabinet Secretary for Transport Ministerial car statistics: FOI release

Information requested

1. The total number of journeys, including their start points and end destinations, made by ministerial car between the 1st January 2025 and 31st August 2025 by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop MSP.

2. How much has it cost to run the Cabinet Secretary for Transport’s ministerial cars in 2024? Can you supply a breakdown of these costs.

Response

A number of exemptions apply to the information you have requested.

All Ministerial car journeys are routinely and proactively published and can be found via the following link: Ministerial engagements, travel and gifts - gov.scot

Under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably  accessible to you. If, however, you do not have internet access to obtain this information from the website(s) listed, then please contact me again and I will send you a paper copy.

Exemption 27(1) applies to the information requested from 01 May 2025 to 31 August 2025, as this information will be published in the next 12 weeks.

You will be able to access the information via the link above.

This is a formal notice under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested. This exemption allows public authorities to refuse to disclose information if they already plan to publish it within the next 12 weeks.

Our application of this exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information now outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have concluded that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, since providing this information at this point, given that it will shortly be published, would not be a responsible use of public resources and therefore not be in the public interest.

The Government Car Service (GCS) operates its vehicles and drivers as a shared resource. As a result, they frequently cover multiple customers throughout the day, and individual costs are not recorded.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

However, we are able to provide the total cost of operating the Government Car Service in its entirety for the financial year, as opposed to the costs incurred for a single ministers use, broken down by expenditure category. This information is provided below.

Year	Fuel cost	Service and repairs cost	Staff costs	Private contract hire cost	Travel and subsistence	Total cost
2023/24	£78,050	£47,167	£1,169,372	£197,642	£13,890	£1,506,122
2024/25	£59,512	£90,758	£1,108,811	£180,807	£7,355	£1,447,243

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.