Government Car and Despatch Agency

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:

    We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms.... Only in superstition is there hope. If you want to become a friend of civilization, then become an enemy of the truth and a fanatic for harmless balderdash.
    Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)

    The car as we know it is on the way out. To a large extent, I deplore its passing, for as a basically old- fashioned machine, it enshrines a basically old-fashioned idea: freedom. In terms of pollution, noise and human life, the price of that freedom may be high, but perhaps the car, by the very muddle and confusion it causes, may be holding back the remorseless spread of the regimented, electronic society.
    —J.G. (James Graham)

    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.
    Robert Benchley (1889–1945)