Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council has introduced Tusker’s salary sacrifice scheme, SS4C, for up to 3500 employees within its 6000-strong workforce with the aim of “reducing carbon emissions, increasing the choice of flexible benefits and generating savings for the council”.

Integrated transport manager Colin Bowley said there has been “real interest amongst employees”.

“Our initial view was that interest and take-up would be limited due to public sector spending cuts. But so far with 12 new car orders and another five awaiting internal approval already, they have far exceeded our initial expectations for the scheme.”

Cars eligible under the scheme have to emit less than 120g/km CO2 to meet the Council’s green targets and the first car, a Fiat 500, has been handed over to Sarah Graham, community safety partnership manager, by Councillor Helen McLuckie, Cabinet Member for Highways, Planning and Transport.

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council selected the SS4C scheme under the terms of a Pan Government Collaborative Framework Agreement originally set up by North Yorkshire County Council when it established its own salary sacrifice car scheme last year.

Under the terms of the agreement, Tusker’s SS4C scheme is available for use by all UK contracting public sector authorities, including government departments, non-departmental public bodies, the NHS, local authorities, police authorities and emergency services.

“We heard of the scheme following the North Yorkshire initiative but there were other reasons for selecting it too,” said Colin Bowley. “It is a very easy scheme to implement with no bureaucracy as it is all online, it generates savings for both staff and the Council and it helps us achieve our carbon reduction targets.

“We initially thought that interest would only centre on small cars but we have also had enquiries for premium cars with list prices of up to £27,000 under the scheme,” he added.

Tusker business development manager Alison Argall said: “We are delighted to be working with Redcar and Cleveland to provide its employees with a choice of new ‘green’ cars. This helps the authority meet carbon reduction targets whilst employees enjoy the tax efficiency of the scheme, hassle free motoring and significant improvements on fuel efficiency.

“We are currently seeing high levels of interest in the SS4C scheme from local authorities as a result of the framework agreement and expect to announce several new schemes going live in the coming weeks,” she added.

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