Herefordshire Council Vehicle Fleet
Case reference FOI2024/01675
Received 7 October 2024
Published 10 October 2024
Request
I am writing to you today under The Freedom of Information act. Please can you provide me with the following:
1. Fleet Size and List.
2. Value of vehicle hire expenditure for 2023.
Response
1. Fleet Size and List.
Please see the attached spreadsheet.
Please note that the vehicle registration numbers have been withheld under Section 31 (1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which exempts information if release would, or would be likely, to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime. Disclosure of information under the Freedom of Information Act is essentially a disclosure to the world at large not just to the individual requesting it. Disclosing the information would be likely to result in criminals using the information for the purposes of criminal activity, such as cloning of vehicles for the purposes of, for instance, theft and traffic offence avoidance. I therefore consider that in this instance Section 31 of the Act is engaged.
This particular exemption is subject to the public interest test, and accordingly I have taken the following factors into consideration:
Favouring disclosure of the information:
Providing details of the requested vehicles would enable the public to access information on the fleet of vehicles used by the council.
Favouring withholding the information:
Disclosure of the vehicle registration numbers in conjunction with the other details regarding the vehicles requested, could enable the vehicles to be cloned for criminal purposes i.e. they could be used to avoid liability for traffic violation fines, road tax / MOT / insurance avoidance or could be used as part of a chain for moving vehicles for fencing purposes. Indeed by providing details of registrations together with details of the make and model of a vehicle it would enable someone looking to disguise a vehicle by cloning a number plate from a range of registrations that do belong to that make / model of vehicle and make it look like someone else's car.
Although it is possible for that criminals could do this anyway, though simply observing vehicles and making a note of the registration numbers, providing the information requested would make it much easier for them to do this.
If the council’s vehicles were cloned and used for criminal purposes it would have a significant effect. Time would need to be spent responding to any resulting police investigation which would cost a business time and resources. Time would also have to be spent by the police or other agencies excluding the genuine vehicle from their investigation, which would also result in a further cost to the public purse, and would also give the criminals responsible more time to hide evidence of their activities.
In this instance the public interest favours withholding the information. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act for this part of your request.
2. Value of vehicle hire expenditure for 2023.
Between April 2023 and March 2024, the council leased two minibuses. The total cost for both minibuses was £19,828.94.
Documents
This is Herefordshire Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.