A LEADING fleet services company has warned employers not to dispense with the services of a specialist fleet manager as companies prepare for the new company car tax and health and safety legislation.

Rael Winetroube, sales director of DaimlerChrysler Services Fleet Management, said the role of the fleet manager should increase, not shrink, to cover greater financial and management responsibility.

He said: 'The fleet manager who is really switched-on to the new conditions in the marketplace is going to be invaluable. His or her expert knowledge on a wide range of subjects will be needed to put forward intelligently structured schemes to steer a company through the changes to benefit in kind tax.

'The fleet manager will also have to take charge of company responsibilities for driver safety if proposals by the Work-related Road Safety Task Group to have all at-work drivers covered by health and safety legislation are given the go-ahead.

'Traditionally, the fleet manager has provided a link between the finance, facilities and human resource operations within the company. To remove that management element at a time of increasing complexity is to leave a dangerous gap in the chain of responsibility.'