Fleets split over salary sacrifice

Fleets are divided as to whether they will consider introducing a salary sacrifice scheme following news that four major leasing providers have entered the market.

A Fleet News poll revealed that 57% of respondents would not be considering introducing a salary sacrifice scheme, while 43% would.

LeasePlan, Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions, Lex Autolease and GE Capital Solutions Fleet Services are all about to launch schemes (Fleet News, February 18), while others, including Tusker, Zenith Provecta and Masterlease have established products already available to fleets.

One fleet manager who is interested in finding out more is Leigh Stiff, at Hannaford, who saw the potential environmental benefits by giving people access to lower polluting vehicles as a major motivating factor. “It’s definitely something we are going to look into,” he said.

The schemes make company cars available to employees via their benefits package in exchange for a monthly payment from their salary before tax.

Employees gain through savings in income tax and National Insurance contributions (NIC), while the employer benefits from NIC savings.

Tusker’s managing director David Hosking said: “We have been absolutely staggered by the amount of interest and this is growing by the week and month.”

But as the poll revealed, 57% of respondents are still not considering salary sacrifice as a method for employees to access a vehicle.

Amongst them was Stuart Roberts, fleet manager at JTL, who highlighted risk management concerns as a stumbling block to introducing such a scheme. “It does not solve grey fleet issues,” he said.