Research carried out the Welsh Liberal Democrat leader, Kirsty Williams has revealed that the Welsh Government spent £5 million over the last five years on hire cars for civil servant use.
The Welsh government has had a vehicle hire contract with Europcar UK Ltd for the past 5 years and it has been available for use by Welsh government staff.
Yearly spend on Europcar hire:
2004 £958,708
2005 £990,699
2006 £924,123
2007 £1,188,367
2008 £1,040,613
Total £5,102,510
Commenting, Kirsty said:
“At a time when Welsh businesses and the people of Wales have to really tighten their belts, this Labour-Plaid government have increased their spending on civil service car hire. Of course, I understand that civil servants need to travel across Wales to attend meetings but £1 million a year is an extortionate amount of money to spend on this.
“The Welsh government has a responsibility to make sure our Welsh pound is spent wisely and has the biggest impact possible. They need to increase their use of video conferencing to reduce travel for civil servants and when the technology is not available the Welsh government should have a pool of low carbon energy efficient cars to reduce the amount they spend on civil servant travel and play their part in lowering CO2 emissions in Wales.”
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They’d probably struggle to organise video conferencing, given that broadband is so poor in many parts of Wales!