The Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has selected the salary sacrifice car scheme SS4C from Tusker for all its permanent employees as part of its flexible staff benefits offering.

The scheme is open to all permanent Cornwall PFT staff who can surrender a proportion of their salary in return for a new car through Tusker’s online system.

The SS4C scheme will also be open to around 5,000 staff at the Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS Trust who are able to access SS4C through a parallel agreement with Cornwall PFT.

Cornwall PFT is currently in the process of winding down its existing lease car scheme on cost grounds and wanted an alternative system that provided the option of wider car ownership to all staff.

Towards the end of 2011, the Trust went out to tender through a full European Journal procurement process and selected Tusker’s SS4C as the most viable and cost effective of those that it reviewed in the market.

Mark Eades, associate director of human resources at Cornwall PFT, said: “We hope that our staff will be sufficiently encouraged by all the benefits and savings available in the scheme, including a high proportion of those that are currently on our lease car scheme.”

Cornwall PFT has set a carbon cap of 150g/km for all new cars allowed under the scheme, which may seem on the high side in relation to other schemes which have set much lower caps.

“But being a largely rural community we wanted to provide a suitable selection of vehicles, including 4x4s, for all our employees,” added Eades.