The private company responsible for supplying and managing the British armed forces’ vehicles is now approaching local authorities to take over their fleets.

The VT Group is offering the country’s cash-strapped local authorities a range of services including a sale and leaseback deal, where it will purchase their entire fleet of vehicles – including police cars, fire engines and ambulances - and then lease them back.

With cutbacks, the offer to sell off blue-light fleets and bank the proceeds could prove as tempting as it has been for private fleets.

VT is also offering local authorities that do not want to sell their vehicles the option to outsource the maintenance and management of their fleets.

The company has already developed a working relationship with 20 local authorities and is now approaching others that are looking to cut costs.

“Local authority is potentially a very big growth area for us,” a VT spokesman told Fleet News.

“Local authorities are coming under increasing budgetary pressures and are looking to outsource to decrease their costs.”

Fleet management, he said, was an area where VT can help them reduce costs. And a sale and leaseback deal could prove particularly attractive.

“There are three advantages: they save on capital expenditure; by more effective management of the fleet, we can reduce the number of vehicles, which reduces costs; and thirdly, we take all the risk,” explained the spokesman.

VT currently manages the Army’s white fleet – its 14,000 non-operational vehicles – as well as the Metropolitan Police Force’s entire fleet of 3,700 blue-light vehicles.

While these vehicles are not owned by VT – Lex provides the Army’s white fleet vehicles and the Met owns its blue-light vehicles – it has also successfully struck large-scale sale and leaseback deals.

In 2006, it bought some 4,000 construction vehicles from the Army in a sale and leaseback deal.

“We replaced about 1,700 vehicles but through effective management and maintenance, we also reduced the fleet to 2,500 vehicles,” said the spokesman.

“We are quite experienced in this area.”

VT now wants to extend its fleet management and sale and leaseback services to local authorities.
“We are just at the initial stages of this,” he said.

“But already there has been a huge amount of interest.”