THE British Trust for Conservation Volunteers has taken the maintenance management of its 330 vehicles back in-house, after nearly four years of outsourced arrangements. BTCV's group fleet and insurance manager Martin Hall said the original promises made at the outset of the outsourcing contract by supplier Overdrive (formerly Fleet Cost Management) were never achieved.

'Increasing user dissatisfaction, administrative errors and numerous incidences where we could have purchased products cheaper, prompted our decision to change,' said Hall.

Doncaster-based BTCV is a practical environmental charity, and runs 200 minibuses, 70 vans and 60 cars - 80% of which are Ford vehicles.

Hall is a fellow and diploma holder of the Institute of Car Fleet Management, and has now taken responsibility for most of the national services to the charity and its trading company BTCV Enterprises. A new fleet services co-ordinator, soon to be appointed, will now deal with the administration and maintenance control of BTCV's fleet.

'Although I can see that external maintenance management may work well with single driver vehicles doing 60,000 miles, it is not the utopia it is made out to be for diverse fleets,' said Hall. A spokesman for Overdrive said: 'We are obviously very disappointed with the decision taken by BTCV and wish them well with their new in-house fleet arrangement.'