The frailty of the UK’s recovery, and how easily it can be reversed, can be gleaned from some interesting facts unearthed by journalists. Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show how police forces across the country are spending a fortune on hiring vehicles, and pressure groups are beginning to ask why.
The “This is Bristol” website obtained the statistics on how much their local police force, Avon and Somerset Constabulary, spent on hiring vans and cars. The amount is quite staggering and must be a huge chunk of the local car and van hire business. The force spent almost half a million pounds on hiring vehicles in the 2009/10 financial year, £60,000 up on the previous year but when breaking the figures down it becomes apparent that the spend is over £9000 a week!
The force own well over 1000 vehicles already and though it is obvious there are savings on commercial vehicle insurance when renting a van as opposed to buying the vehicle, local pressure groups as well as national ones such as the Taxpayers Alliance are going to great lengths to point out that £9000 a week would buy an awful lot of vehicles over the course of a year.
Apparently the Police use the hire vehicles to transport officers to meetings and training events as well as routine police work that require unmarked cars. The hire bill has now reached over £2.5 million since 2004 and with the public being made ever more aware of spending cuts being necessary, Police forces around the country expecting swingeing cuts in their budgets will be forced to rethink their vehicle hire policy. Local car and van hire businesses may well find one of their biggest customers will be cutting back severely on its order. And this is just one force, the same thing will be happening around the country. The Metropolitan Police Force spend over £10 million a year hiring vehicles and it is estimated that between them the nations Police forces spend about £500,000 a week on hiring vans and cars.
Vehicle hire companies may well be viewing the future nervously as the austerity measures placed on the public sector threaten to overspill into the private sector.