The Government Car and Despatch Agency (GCDA) was an executive agency of the Department for Transport, responsible for providing logistics services to the United Kingdom government and wider public sector. It closed on Sunday 30th September 2012 following discontinuation of its despatch services earlier in the year. All Government Car services were closed as of that date, with the exception of ministerial transport which transferred to the Department for Transport together with the supporting workshop services.
GCDA was split into two businesses: Government Cars and Government Mail. Government Cars provided cars and drivers to government ministers and ran other people-movement services for the wider public sector. Government Mail (formerly known as the Interdespatch Service) provided inter-departmental mail and package movements, and a secure courier service for the wider public sector.
Famous quotes containing the words government, car and/or agency:
“Give me a country where it is the most natural thing in the world for a government that does not understand you to let you alone.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Did ye not hear it?—No; ‘twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.”
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“It is possible that the telephone has been responsible for more business inefficiency than any other agency except laudanum.... In the old days when you wanted to get in touch with a man you wrote a note, sprinkled it with sand, and gave it to a man on horseback. It probably was delivered within half an hour, depending on how big a lunch the horse had had. But in these busy days of rush-rush-rush, it is sometimes a week before you can catch your man on the telephone.”
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