Fleet managers should use the scrappage scheme announced in the Budget to push their grey fleet drivers to upgrade ageing vehicles.

The rental and leasing industries have resoundingly rejected the chancellor Alastair Darling’s scheme as a missed opportunity warning that it may adversely impact used vehicle values.

However, fleet managers should promote the scheme, which begins tomorrow and runs until March 2010, to their grey fleet drivers.

The scheme will see new van and car buyers offered a £2,000 incentive if they have a 10-year old vehicle to trade-in. Nissan has already lowered the trade-in age to eight years or older.

While the scheme will be of limited benefit to fleets, as few operate vehicles of that age, a fleet manager concerned about monitoring the safety and efficiency of grey fleet vehicles can use this as an incentive to get staff to upgrade to a new model.

Kia for example is offering its Picanto for £10 a week under a personal purchase contract scheme, which will prove attractive to a grey fleet driver with an ageing car that qualifies under the new rules.

“For employees that use their own 10-year-old or more cars on business, the opportunity to get a £2,000 trade in allowance against a new car will be welcomed,” said Gary Hull, director, HRS Employment Solutions at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“It is still likely however that for the majority of employees currently driving their own car, a low C02 emission car via salary sacrifice will be a more cost effective and certainly a more environmentally-friendly opportunity.”

Salary sacrifice schemes may prove attractive to some, while employee car ownership (ECO) schemes should also be investigated. However, Andrew Cope, chief executive of Zenith Provecta, one of the country’s leading ECO scheme providers, said the scrappage scheme will be of limited value to potential new ECO users.

“Most cars on ECO schemes are funded on a loan basis,” he said. “And title does not pass to the driver on day one, so such schemes are not really applicable here.”

However, this should not discourage fleet managers from investigating the best way of getting their grey fleet drivers out of old, potentially unsafe and often more polluting old cars.