Council funded vehicles (Stockport Council again)

Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities did not have the information requested.

Sheila Oliver

Dear Department for Communities and Local Government,

This is a recent FOI response from Stockport Council:-

"I am writing in response to your request for information below (Ref 4279).

The response to your request has been prepared by the relevant Council
service and is as follows:

1) How many cars are provided for managers/officials’ use by the
authority? 475

2) Of these vehicles:

a) What is the average business mileage claimed? 1373

b) How many drivers achieve this average? 108

d) How many drivers claim below this average? 176

d) How many drivers claim no business mileage at all 191"

Under any written down plans Mr Pickles may or may not have, what can I do about this? I don't want to fund 191 vehicles which do no business mileage. I don't want to fund vehicles which have very low business mileage. Why do they need vehicles then?

What cunning plans does Mr. Pickles have for me to deal with such insanities?

Yours faithfully,

Sheila Oliver

Sheila Oliver

Dear Department for Communities and Local Government,

Could I have a response please>

Yours faithfully,

Sheila Oliver

PaulB Smith,

Dear Mrs Oliver,

Thank you for your follow up emails regarding Stockport Council. I apologise for the delay in replying and hope you will accept this one reply to cover covering both your emails.

The Secretary of State has stressed the importance of localism and the public holding councils to account. If you have a concerns about the transport the council uses, you may raise them directly with the council, either through a complaint or by taking it up with your local councillor. If you consider that taxpayers money is being wasted, you may wish to contact the council’s independent auditor and flag you concerns with them. Local issues are best resolved at local level.

Local authorities have responsibilities for a range of local services and they are potentially liable for all sorts of issues and would need to be responsible for protecting themselves and the local residents.

You will appreciate that this correspondence has been going on now at some length. Whilst we are, of course, concerned to ensure that all correspondence from the public, including emails, and requests made under the Freedom of Information Act and under the Environmental Information Regulations are dealt with properly and openly, we also do need to ensure that staff here need to be able to carry out their other obligations and duties. Resources are not infinite and we do always have to apportion them carefully to the different public duties that public servants have to fulfil. I am satisfied that we have given you all available and reasonable information that we hold in relation to the points you have made.

I ask you to appreciate that we are simply unable to continue pursuing this correspondence with you.

I therefore have to inform you that my staff will not reply to any more of your letters as this would require an unreasonable diversion of resources. We will acknowledge and file any future letters you send, but we can only respond to any issues you raise on a different matter.

If you remain dissatisfied with this decision you have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner at:

Office of the Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone 01625 545 700
Email [email address].

Regards.

DCLG Contact Us Team

show quoted sections

Dear PaulB Smith,

Thank you for your reply. It would seem that Mr Pickles has nothing in his toybox to deal with such councils as Stockport. In that respect he would appear to be completely impotent. I wonder if it is wise to disperse with the regulatory bodies if there is nothing with any teeth to replace them. I don't think Mr. Pickles has thought this situation through.

Kind regards

Sheila

Yours sincerely,

Sheila Oliver