The environment, health and safety and cost containment are the three big concerns for fleets this year.

Almost 30% are currently undergoing a review of their company car policy, while four in 10 have reviewed policy within the past year.

The findings come from the latest IDS survey of company car policies, seen exclusively by Fleet News, which surveyed 110 employers via questionnaire and 18 companies through in-depth case studies.

Of the three big concerns, cost containment dominated.

Fleets are analysing every aspect of spend, from the choice of funding options, to fuel usage and insurance. Cash allowance schemes are also a major focus.

Almost 88% of companies allow status car users to opt for cash instead of a car, but only 35.9% of job-need drivers are given this option.

“However, as a result of a legally-driven focus on health and safety issues, some employers have concluded that their drivers would be better protected in company provided and maintained cars,” says the report.

It detects a growing trend for companies to pull back from cash allowance schemes and points to the manslaughter law as a key reason.

“This has prompted many organisations to assess the risks associated with allowing employees to use their own cars and, in some cases, deciding that company-provided cars carry less risk in relation to the new legislation.”

Where the cash option is provided, IDS’s survey suggests that a rising number of status car drivers are taking the money.

On average, just under half took this option, although the proportions vary by job status with 53.7% of board level staff choosing cash but only 32.3% of junior managers doing so.

The annual amounts offered vary from £10,000 for board members – although their allowances reached as much as £28,000 – to £4,460 for junior managers.

For job-need drivers offered the cash allowance option, just under 30% took it.

On average, they are offered an annual allowance of around £4,500.

Most companies (45.9%) tend to use survey benchmarking against the market to set their allowance figures, although almost one-quarter (24.5%) base their figures on lease costs. Employee salary is used by 10%.

Those figures are reviewed by almost one-third of fleets every year, with a further 37.4% reviewing them every two to three years.

It’s not just health and safety concerns which are persuading companies to reassess cash allowance schemes.

They are also an administrative headache, increasing the amount of time HR and fleet departments have to devote to managing driver preferences.

To help counter this, some companies have stopped allowing drivers to trade up to higher value models than specified by the standard entitlement level, often justifying their action on environmental grounds.

Other organisations have stopped both trading up and down, largely because they have been left with unpopular vehicles that are difficult to pass on if the driver leaves before the end of the replacement cycle.

Green policies are playing an increasing role in influencing company car policies, according to 62% of fleets. It’s the bigger companies that are giving it greatest consideration.

Almost 80% of large organisations, with more than 10,000 staff, said their policy was drafted with the environment in mind, but just 40% of companies with fewer than 250 staff are addressing green issues.

Compared by sectors, finance organisations are the most likely to be considering green concerns.

CO2 is at the centre of any policy with many fleets putting a cap on emissions. Alternative measures include offering staff incentives to consider low emission or hybrid cars, the provision of diesel vehicles only, and a commitment to monitoring the CO2 values of cars ordered to minimum emissions.

IDS company car policies 2009/10 is priced £286.

For more information email ids.ecr@thomsonreuters.com, call 0845 6009355 or go to www.incomesdata.co.uk.