Grey fleet - a black and white issue

Geoffrey Bray is incredulous: why, he asks, does grey fleet exist?

At a recent Fleet News roundtable he sparked heated debate among the public sector organisations present which did not have a policy to stop employees using their own car for business.

For him the issue is, ahem, black and white.

“There shouldn’t be any grey fleet at all,” he says. “You either need a vehicle to operate your business or you don’t.

“It’s a great concern to say ‘you don’t need a vehicle, but I will pay you to use your own’. You should have to either use a demonstrator or rent a car.”

Bray believes companies need to look more closely at the drain to their bottom line of paying staff AMAP rates to use their own cars for business. AMAPs are, he believes, a way for staff to boost their monthly income.

“Create an internal rental platform so you don’t have the fixed cost,” he advises. “Then you are in control.”

He adds: “Companies say ‘we have always done it this way’ and they are afraid to upset employees. But there has never been a better time to do it because people want to keep their jobs – that’s the most important thing.”

Bray’s one concession to grey fleet is where a programme has been built as a way to enhance salaries, such as in health trusts.

“This is a different animal,” he says. “In this case, you have to come at it in a different way, looking at how you can better reimburse staff. It has to be managed from the top.”

 

Lease rules to create growth opportunities

ARI predicts huge growth opportunities when the lease accounting rules finally come to Europe.
It believes the legislative changes, which will put leased vehicles on to companies’ balance sheets, will lead to significant changes in the way vehicles are funded.

“The opportunities in Europe will increase, especially from full maintenance contract hire in the UK,” Bray says.

“Most other countries are finance lease with the end user taking the risk and handling the fleet management.”

ARI provides finance lease funding in America with the lessee taking the residual value risk: it forecasts that this funding model will become more popular as vehicles move onto the balance sheet.