TUSKER

Law firm’s salary sacrifice
deal

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has signed
a deal to provide a salary sacrifice car scheme to all its 1,800 UK
staff, working with fleet management and leasing company
Tusker.

The law firm hopes that at least 100 orders will be
placed on Tusker’s SalarySacrifice4Cars (SS4C) scheme in its first
year. Prior to the agreement with Tusker, Freshfields had not had a
formal company car scheme for “many years”, Tusker said.

The SS4C scheme is web-based and fully automated,
Tusker said, with monthly rentals between £120 to £450 for the
cars, all of which emit 120g/km CO2 or less. Insurance, breakdown,
maintenance costs and tyres are all included in the monthly
cost.

Within the first fortnight of the scheme’s
operation, 10 orders were placed, Tusker said.

“SS4C has opened up the possibility of having a
company car to all levels of staff and there has been a very
enthusiastic response from staff who have taken this benefit so
far,” said Freshfields employee benefits manager Adam Brooke.

“We are delighted to be working with such a
prestigious law firm as Freshfields and in helping them give staff
the option of what to all extents and purposes is a company car for
the first time,” said David Hosking, Tusker managing director,
predicting that the scheme would eventually grow to cover between
10 and 15 percent of the legal firm’s employee base.

LOMBARD

AA van deal extended

Lombard Vehicle Management (LVM) has
followed up recent contract wins with the AA with a huge deal to
deliver 3,000 roadside assistance vans to the motoring company by
2014. The deal has an asset value of £48 million, LVM said.

The van build will be completely overseen by LVM,
with finished vehicles to be delivered with bespoke recovery
equipment installed. Some of the fittings to be used will be
recycled from vans already on fleet, the lessor said, after being
refurbished.

Equipment reused in this way will also be funded by
Lombard, on longer-lasting contracts than the vans’ replacement
cycle.

The lessor has written new business with the AA
worth a total of £60 million so far in 2009 (see MF June
2009), and is its current provider of roadside assistance
vans.

“The AA’s renewal of its core fleet business is a
powerful endorsement not only of our market-leading solutions-based
LCV offering and ability to develop long-term customer
relationships and add value, but also of our access to significant
levels of capital when others are contracting,” said Stuart
Houlston, managing director of LVM.

ALD AUTOMOTIVE

Police affinity scheme
renewed

The 3,500 staff employed by the Surrey
police force can benefit from savings of “thousands of pounds” on
leased cars, following the relaunch of the AutoChoice affinity
scheme administered by ALD Automotive.

Employees and their families are eligible to lease
a car through the scheme, which may be widened in future to include
retired police officers, ALD said.

New and nearly-new (typically six months old, with
10,000 miles on the clock) cars are available to staff. Surrey
Police is the only police force in the UK to offer its staff cars
through an affinity scheme, ALD added.

“Surrey Police, in particular their head of
business development, blazed a trail with AutoChoice and, with this
new feature, we are looking to increase the number of affinity
schemes ALD offer within the public sector,” said John Wright of
ALD’s AutoSolutions team, which offers consultancy on issues
surrounding vehicle funding and fleet choices.

“Affinity schemes remain relatively unknown within
the public sector, but we believe they can be offered successfully
as Surrey Police has shown.”

Wright said he is confident that the lease terms
available to police employees could not be bettered elsewhere.
Employees can find out about the AutoChoice options open to them
through a dedicated intranet site, which includes a lease rental
calculator.