What about other vehicle technologies, such as reversing sensors, in-cab cameras and lane departure warning; is it something you consider?

Richard Flint: While new technologies are being made available by manufacturers, you have to consider the cost.

Steve Thompson: All these gadgets also put the cost of collisions up.

Larry Bannon: Where they become standard, we will specify it in the vehicle, but we tend to target certain areas with specific technologies. For example, we had a lot of low-speed reversing incidents with our 7.5-tonne box vans so on all conversions we fitted reversing sensors and in-cab cameras. Incidents, as a result, have reduced dramatically.

Police fleets and blue-light fleets have a history of working together, but is there a drive for broader collaboration across the public sector?

Richard Flint: We are now encouraged to work with other public sector organisations; it’s just the way the mind-set has changed. You’re always thinking about who your potential partners are and how can we work together on different things. A lot of that has been driven by austerity.

Graham Telfer: We work as part of a group of five local authorities on vehicle procurement, vehicle insurance, body repairs and vehicle maintenance.  

Local authorities have particularly been encouraged to spearhead the environmental agenda; what have you been able to do to reduce CO2?

Richard Flint: Wholelife costs have helped enormously, because once you bring wholelife costs into the equation it invariably means you get vehicles with the best fuel economy and lowest emissions. However, I think one of the reasons the public sector used to take the lead on the environmental agenda was that there was money to play with, but when cost is now such a priority, austerity is stemming innovation.

Graham Telfer: Historically, Government would give money to the public sector to develop green initiatives.

Larry Bannon: If we are looking at emission levels it depends on how the vehicle is being driven and that’s another benefit of driver training.

What other things have you done to reduce costs outside of procurement and the use of telematics?

Richard Flint: Downsizing in terms of vehicle choice has had real benefits. You can benefit from a lower unit cost and from a reduction in fuel use.

Graham Telfer: We have got vehicles that are being used by more than one service. For example, during the day they will be used by meals on wheels and then during the night by security. We have also taken our 7.5-tonne vehicles down to 3.5 tonnes.

Tony Chalk: We have aligned servicing closer to manufacturer-recommended intervals. In the past we were servicing them on much more regular intervals but the change has had no impact on maintenance at all.

Richard Flint: You have also got to regularly review what you outsource and what you do yourself. For example, we discovered some vehicles were travelling long distances to be serviced or for maintenance, so now we take them to local suppliers. Clearly, staff cuts have also been an inevitable factor because of the pressure on budgets and organisational costs, which again have an effect on curtailing innovation. It also stops you from being able to really analyse different aspects of the business because you have to concentrate on the day-to-day.

Larry Bannon: We don’t have the luxury of our own in-house workshops and a third of our fleet is HGVs, which need AdBlue top-ups, so we have installed AdBlue tanks at our 15 main sites where we have bulk fuel tanks. Our projection is that within two-and-a-half years we will be breaking even on our investment and thereafter we will be achieving savings.

Graham Telfer: I’ve been sceptical about extending the life of vehicles beyond five years. We have kept a few up to six and seven years and it hasn’t worked, so we are going back to the same replacement cycles we’ve had in the past. However, we have also reduced staff numbers, have more people working from home and accident management has been more vigorous. Over the past four years we have achieved a £7 million cost saving.

Steve Thompson: We used to keep vehicles five years/150,000 miles, but most of our plain vehicles would always go on age rather than the mileage criteria. However, those days are now going and it’s a case of being able to manage the fleet to ensure they hit the maximum mileage.
Richard Flint: This is where professional fleet management comes in. Anybody can put a spreadsheet together and apply replacement criteria, and out comes your fleet replacement programme. But a professional fleet manager can manage the vehicles and decide what needs replacing and when.