List of buses, coaches, minibuses and ambulances 2024
Case reference FOI2024/00004
Published 26 January 2024
Request
Many thanks for your help in previous years and I would be most grateful if you could kindly supply me with this year's current list of all buses, coaches, minibuses and ambulances operated by the Council (owned or leased). Could you please include the following information in respect of each vehicle?
1. Registration number
2. Fleet number allocated (if any)
3. Date taken into stock by the authority
4. Chassis make and model
5. Number of seats (excluding driver)
6. Body builder/converter (where known)
7. Department/school/operator to which the vehicle is allocated
Response
Many thanks for your help in previous years and I would be most grateful if you could kindly supply me with this year's current list of all buses, coaches, minibuses and ambulances operated by the Council (owned or leased). Could you please include the following information in respect of each vehicle?
1. Registration number
2. Fleet number allocated (if any)
3. Date taken into stock by the authority
4. Chassis make and model
5. Number of seats (excluding driver)
6. Body builder/converter (where known)
7. Department/school/operator to which the vehicle is allocated
Please see the attached spreadsheet. All of those listed are minibuses and all are owned by the council (no minibuses are leased). The council does not own or lease any of the other vehicles detailed above.
Please note that on the attached the registration numbers of the vehicles have been withheld. We consider this information to be exempt under Section 31(1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which exempts information if it would, or would be likely, to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime. 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 further information on vehicles used by the council.
Favouring withholding the information:
Disclosure of the vehicle registration number in conjunction with the other details requested, could enable the vehicle to be cloned for criminal purposes i.e. it 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 the registration together with details of the type of 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 vehicle.
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 vehicle concerned was cloned and used for criminal purposes it would have a significant effect on those concerned. 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.
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.