A growing number of businesses now regard company cars as an essential recruitment tool.

While 17% of companies say company cars have become an outdated benefit, 42% say that offering a car to new employees remains an essential benefit to attract the right candidates – a figure that jumped from just 30% in 2007.

The Employee Benefits/SureFleet Fleet Research 2008 Survey also found that 39% manage their fleet internally, although this number has fallen from 51% in 2007, while 29% use a combination of outsourced and in-house fleet management to manage their company vehicles.

With environmental concerns high on the agenda, almost 70% of the 480 companies questioned said they planned to reduce the size of their fleet this year.

This is in addition to the 11% who said they had already cut their fleet size during the past 12 months.

Almost half (45%) said environmental issues would dictate part of their fleet policy development this year, although almost one-fifth had yet to calculate their fleet’s carbon emissions.

Almost 30% will amend their fleet policy in the coming weeks to take into account the introduction of the Corporate Manslaughter Act in April and 54% will introduce a policy to check cars’ MoT and service records are up to date.