The research was carried out by Intelligent Car Leasing which used freedom of information requests to ask each council to provide the five most expensive non-commercial vehicles under their ownership or management. The results show the full breakdown of what tax payers’ money is being spent on from top to bottom across the country.

In terms of spending on cars the average council car is valued at £27,230.24 (based on the new RRP price and not current market values). There is some notably low and sensible spending from councils such as the London borough of Hillingdon and Doncaster whose average car spend comes in at between £10.5-11.5k. However on the other side of the spectrum there are councils like Cheshire West, Birmingham and Dudley who have average spending levels of around £50k per car.

The research also looked at the highest and lowest individual car values, with the Bentley Flying Spur at £140,900 and the Smart Car at £6841.40. The Bentley Flying Spur is owned individually by both Cheshire East Council and Cheshire West and Chester Council whilst the Smart Car is owned by the London Borough of Hillingdon, helping to explain why these councils are in the top/bottom five average spenders of all that were surveyed.

The research also found that Fords take a dominating share of councils’ cars across the UK making up over 25% of all given vehicles. Toyota, BMW and Jaguar also have a notable share at around 8% each and the rest of the market is fairly fragmented between the remaining manufacturers.

Access to full details of the study including a full table of results, graphics and downloadable data can be found here http://bit.ly/1jXjPAY