University of Edinburgh funds 964 chauffeur driven car trips in a year

Senior staff and important guests were provided with hundreds of chauffeur driven car trips by the University of Edinburgh, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

The response from the university explains that it maintains one car and a driver for the “non-exclusive” use of senior staff at the University. The highest priority for use of the car is given to the Chancellor and “senior government officials from other countries,” it adds.

Examples of the types of trips made in the car include transporting senior staff or visitors to and from the airport, transporting staff between the 5 main University sites in the capital, and to take staff to business appointments in other pans of Scotland.

In total, 964 chauffeur driven trips were made in the car in twelve months. An additional car and driver was hired to transport honorary graduates to and their graduation ceremonies.

According to the University: “Using the University car enables staff to maximise their efficiency by using the journey time to conduct confidential telephone calls, prepare for meetings and on shared journeys to discuss confidential business matters. In addition it is a more reliable, efficient and smoother way of organising transfers between appointments than individual taxi journeys.”

“We have over 35,000 students and over 9,000 full-time equivalent staff. In 2014/15 our turnover was £819 million.”

The freedom of information request was made by a supporter of The Ferret, who then shared the response with us.

We’ve posted the full response to our public archive.

If you have received a Freedom of Information response that you’d like us to publish, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Pic credit: Old College | University Of Edinburgh | CC | Kim Traynor | http://bit.ly/2bPPwCE