Public Sector
A safe pair of hands
Our 30 year track record supporting NHS and public sector organisations means we understand the landscape you operate in and the fleet opportunities and challenges you face.
As a long standing Crown Commercial Services supplier you can rely on us to get to the heart of your needs with strategic, sustainable, cost conscious solutions that drive you and your fleets forward.
All with full support from us and minimal resource from your teams
Case Study
Sustainable scheme drives down Welsh Health Board’s emissions
Hywel Dda University Health Board provides NHS healthcare services to more than 387,000 people in Mid and West Wales, delivered by over 12,450 staff across multiple sites.
The challenge
The Health Board’s existing salary deduction car scheme was managed in house and the salary sacrifice provision outsourced. The arrangement was an administrative burden and delivered limited savings.
Hywel Dda needed one consolidated, simple to implement, sustainable scheme that would offer an attractive staff benefit, cut internal costs and reduce transport emissions in line with the Welsh government’s net zero by 2030 public sector target.
Our approach
Working closely with the Health Board, we designed a new private use car scheme to stimulate take up and encourage more grey fleet drivers into newer, safer, lower emission cars.
Features included flexible payment options for staff and using our industry leading vehicle quoting portal with live feeds to all CCS Lot 1 suppliers to achieve the best lease car prices. Innovative cost reduction and risk protection strategies were also introduced.
Our complete end to end fleet administration service minimised the internal resources required of the Health Board.
An annually reducing carbon cap was placed on all scheme vehicles to restrict the use of higher polluting cars, along with the facility to reinvest part of the scheme savings to incentivise electric and ultra low emission vehicles (ULEVs), and support on site charging infrastructure.
“The services, systems, level of knowledge and support provided by Knowles Fleet to our Health Board have been an essential element in our drive to reduce CO2 emissions and deliver financial savings across our fleets. This is particularly evident in the establishment and improved uptake of our new lease car schemes.
I would highly recommend Knowles Fleet to any other organisations thinking of adopting a similar approach.”
Hywel Dda Transport and Travel Coordinator Alex Howells (right) with Will Garnham, Knowles Fleet Procurement team, during an onsite Arrive & Drive event
The results
We seamlessly integrated the two former schemes and smoothly managed the transfer of the salary sacrifice cars from the previous provider. Our outsourced administration released two full time equivalent staff.
In the first three years, the number of salary sacrifice battery electric vehicles (BEVs) rose exponentially and hybrid take up tripled. The average carbon value of the cars fell 41%.
Salary deduction fleet carbon emissions fell 60%, supported by a 200% and 166% increase in BEVs and hybrids respectively. Petrol and diesel vehicle numbers dropped by 30%.
Average annual savings per car more than tripled, with significant additional savings in business mileage allowances. As a result of the scheme’s success, the number of employee owned vehicles driven for work (grey fleet) fell by 28%, cutting associated carbon emissions by 49%.