Essex Police Vehicles Being Incorrectly Fuelled or Running Out of Fuel 2017 to 2021
Keywords
Vehicles, Incorrectly, Fuelled, Running, Out, Fuel, Incorrect, Staff, Cost, Rectifying, Misfuelling, Repairing, Special, Measures, Implemented, Prevent, Mistakes, Future, Training, Courses, Modified, Occurring, Steps, Implication, Instances, Breaking, Figures, District, Areas, Commands, Departments, Transport, Services, Stickers, Filler, Variant, Applicable.
Publication Number
PUB 1082
FOI Reference Number
16693
Request Title
Essex Police Vehicles Being Incorrectly Fuelled or Running Out of Fuel 2017 to 2021
Date Range
2017 to 2021
Information Requested
Q1) For each of the last five calendar years (2017 - 2021) can you please share how many instances there were of police vehicles having the incorrect fuel put in them by staff.
Q2) Can you please supply the cost to the force of rectifying the misfuelling/repairing the vehicle. Please give the total cost for each calendar year from 2017 to 2021.
Q3) Can you please advise of any special measures your force has implemented to prevent these mistakes happening in future. For instance, have police staff been put on training courses or have the vehicles been modified in any way to stop this occurring in future. Please describe the steps taken and also the cost implication of these measures.
Q4) For each other last five years can you please advise how many instances there have been of police vehicles breaking down as a result of running out of fuel. Please provide figures for each year.
Disclosure with Exemptions
Part Disclosure with Section 12 Exemption
Information Correct as at
02 February 2022
Date of Disclosure
14 February 2022
Related Documents/Links
FOI 16693 Response
Essex Police has made enquiries within the force, however, Essex Police is unable to comply with Section 1(1)(a) by virtue of exemption Section 12(2).
Section 12 of the FOIA states that a public authority is not obliged to:
1) “…comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.”
2) Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of Section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.
The following explanation outlines the difficulty Essex Police has in answering your request:
In relation to Question 4, Essex Police are unable to accurately extract the level of detail in relation to your request for the requested periods from our current systems. Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not primarily for the production of statistical information for FOI responses. This request would entail contacting all the District Policing Areas/Commands/Departments within Essex Police to establish if any such information was held as there is no central log. However, the Transport Services Department can advise that they have no records of this occurring. To establish if information is held would, therefore, exceed the time and cost limits under the FOIA and would qualify as the creation of data as the results cannot be processed by means of purely sorting or filtering data sources or running a database query tool. There is no requirement under the act to create data purely to answer FOI requests.
Consequently and to this extent, Essex Police are exempt from the duty to provide information you have requested under the provisions of Section 12(2) of the FOIA. Therefore, and in accordance with Section 17(1) of the FOIA, this communication must act as a refusal notice to provide all of the information that could be interpreted as being captured by this part of your request.
Having said that and in an effort to assist, although excess cost removes the force’s obligations under the FOIA, Essex Police can confirm the following:
Caveats:
The data is correct as at 02 February 2022.
The Transport Services Department Team have advised that the system they use only works in financial years, therefore, we are unable to supply the data in calendar years.
1) For each of the last five calendar years (2017 - 2021) can you please share how many instances there were of Police vehicles having the incorrect fuel put in them by staff.
|
Year |
Boreham |
Laindon |
|
2017/18 |
7 |
2 |
|
2018/19 |
6 |
5 |
|
2019/20 |
11 |
4 |
|
2020/21 |
7 |
2 |
2) Can you please supply the cost to the force of rectifying the misfuelling/repairing the vehicle. Please give the total cost for each calendar year from 2017 to 2021.
|
Year |
Boreham |
Laindon |
|
2017/18 |
£2095.70 |
£503.86 |
|
2018/19 |
£649.73 |
£838.54 |
|
2019/20 |
£1544.42 |
£767.95 |
|
2020/21 |
£1097.39 |
£306.81 |
3) Can you please advise of any special measures your force has implemented to prevent these mistakes happening in future. For instance, have police staff been put on training courses or have the vehicles been modified in any way to stop this occurring in future. Please describe the steps taken and also the cost implication of these measures.
The Transport Services Department place stickers on or around the filler of the vehicles detailing the fuel variant applicable to that specific vehicle.
Every effort is made to ensure that the data provided by Essex Police is accurate and complete. However, Essex Police systems are designed primarily for the management of individual cases and not for the purposes of providing data to answer specific FOI enquiries. Please note although data can be extracted from a number of sources via database queries, the results may be subject to inaccuracies. Care should be taken to understand our return when considering the interpretation or further use of the data.