Ministerial Travel by Lorna Slater: FOI release

Information requested

1. Since 1st January 2023 how many journeys by ministerial/Scottish Government or publicly funded vehicles has Lorna Slater made? (The type of event or destination is not requested)

2. How many of these journeys were chauffeur driven?

3. What is the total mileage in relation to these journeys? (Official vehicles should have records of journeys, driver, date, time mileage etc in the event of driver identity being required by Police Scotland)

4. How many times during the same period has the minister used public transport to attend events etc?

5. What type (make and model) of vehicle has been used for these journeys?

6. What percentage or number of the vehicles used have been electric vehicles?

Response

1. Since 1st January 2023 how many journeys by ministerial/Scottish Government or publicly funded vehicles has Lorna Slater made? (The type of event or destination is not requested)

2. How many of these journeys were chauffeur driven? 

5. What type (make and model) of vehicle has been used for these journeys?

6. What percentage or number of the vehicles used have been electric vehicles?

Government Car Service (GCS) vehicle use (100% Electric and plug in Electric)

Make and model	Type	Number of journeys
Kia EV6	Electric	4
Tesla Model 3	Electric	10
Volvo V90	Plug-in Hybrid Electric vehicle (PHEV)	1

Other publicly funded vehicle journeys

Make and model	Type	Number of journeys
Not held	Electric	2
Not held	Not held	25

It may be helpful to know that transport is often provided by event organisers on official site visits, however we do not hold complete records on the vehicle make and model or types used to cover these journeys.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

3. What is the total mileage in relation to these journeys? (Official vehicles should have records of journeys, driver, date, time mileage etc in the event of driver identity being required by Police Scotland)

Government Car Service vehicles and drivers are operated as shared resources, and consequently frequently cover multiple customers throughout that day. We therefore we do not record mileages for individual journeys.

We do not hold records of the distances covered in other publicly funded vehicles.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested.

4. How many times during the same period has the minister used public transport to attend events etc?

Exemption 25(1) applies to the information you have requested regarding the Ministers use of public transport from 01 January 2023 to 31 December 2023.

All Ministerial transport used for this period have been routinely and proactively published and can be found via the following link.

Ministerial engagements, travel and gifts - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

This is a formal notice under section 25(1) of FOISA, we do not have to give you information which is already reasonably accessible to you.

Exemption 27(1) applies to the information requested regarding Ministers use of public transport from 01 January 2024 to 18 March 2024, as this information will be published in the next 12 weeks.

You will be able to access the information via the link above.

This is a formal notice under section 27(1) of FOISA applies to some of the information you have requested. This exemption allows public authorities to refuse to disclose information if they already plan to publish it within the next 12 weeks.

Our application of this exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information now outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have concluded that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, since providing this information at this point, given that it will shortly be published, would not be a responsible use of public resources and therefore not be in the public interest. 

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.