A list of all vehicles currently operated by the council

I am writing to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Please could you provide a list of all vehicles currently operated by the council, whether owned or leased. For each vehicle, I would be grateful if you could include the following details:

1. Chassis make, model, and colour

2. MOT issue and/or expiry date

3. Date of registration with the DVLA

4. Type of body fitted

5. Date of acquisition

6. Date of disposal (if applicable)
 

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request (FOIA). Lincolnshire County Council (the Council/we) confirm that we hold information in scope of the request. Our consideration of the request is that it requires information of ‘all fleet vehicles currently pooled by the council’. The Council being the whole Council. In our previous correspondence we explained that carrying out the work to fulfil this request would exceed the time & cost.To explain,

Section 12 FOIA – Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit Section 12(1) FOIA states; Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

The FOI Code of Practice

If a public authority calculates that responding to a request will take it over the cost limit it is not obliged to provide a substantive response. The cost limit is calculated at a flat rate of £25 per hour. For central government departments the cost limit is £600 (24 hours) and for all other public authorities is £450 (18 hours). Public authorities can only include certain activities when estimating whether responding to a request would breach the cost limit.

These are:

• establishing whether information is held.

• locating and retrieving information; and

• extracting relevant information from the document containing it.

When calculating the cost limit public authorities can aggregate requests which ask for the same or similar information and are received within a 60 working day period. These requests can either be from the same person or a group of people acting together.

Public authorities do not have to search for information in scope of a request until the cost limit is reached, even if the applicant requests that they do so. If responding to one part of a request would exceed the cost limit, public authorities do not have to provide a response to any other parts of the request. The cost limit can be applied on the basis of a reasonable estimate at the time the request is received. Public authorities are not under any obligation to make a precise calculation although estimates should be sensible and realistic.

Whilst we have considered that Section 12 is applicable, we are aware that Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service has recently disclosed information to the same request. This is because they have the information readily prepared and available for updating. The Council as a whole does not hold a central record. The information has to be located from specific areas across the Council.

Aside the information already disclosed by Fire and Rescue, we have located some information which gives details of fleet vehicles pooled by the Council’s Transport Services Group on behalf of a number of services such as Adult Social Care and Children’s Services. See the attached document.

Section 16 FOIA – Duty to provide advice and assistance

We have disclosed the information provided by our Transport Service Group in the format which it is held. We have not disclosed the information related to the whole Council fleet. Whilst we have disclosed some information available, we reiterate the FOI code of practice which states “Public authorities do not have to search for information in scope of a request until the cost limit is reached, even if the applicant requests that they do so. If responding to one part of a request would exceed the cost limit, public authorities do not have to provide a response to any other parts of the request”.

All Council areas using fleet vehicles would not necessarily record the information in the way it is requested. Points 1,3 & 6 are the parts which we consider exaggerate the time and cost. To find this detail we would be required to identify every vehicle across the Council, locate documents for every vehicle and extract the information. We recognise this type of request asks for specific information which may be of benefit to the requestor rather than the wider public. Whilst we want to be transparent and assist a requestor, we are entitled to rely on any exemption available to us, in accordance with the Act. This concludes our response.