Care Management Group has awarded a fleet management outsourcing contract for its fleet of 140 vehicles to fleet management company Fleet Alliance. 

CMG, which operates 116 care centres throughout the UK, provides specialist support to children and adults with learning disabilities, Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, physical disabilities, and mental health needs.

80% of its fleet are company cars, the bulk of which are on a solus badged agreement with Citroen UK, with the remaining 20% being minibuses to transport CMG service users.

CMG decided to switch from its previous supplier, a leading contract hire company, when, late last year, the supplier suddenly changed its terms and conditions.

Fleet Alliance was appointed to manage all aspects of the fleet, with a brief to reduce operating costs and provide ancillary services including short term hire, accident management and driver licence checking.

Fleet Alliance also introduced its competitive tendering solution, through which new additions to the fleet are tendered to a panel of preferred leasing suppliers to find the most cost effective solution. This has been proven to reduce acquisition costs by 8-10% and has helped CMG cut funding costs.

At the same time, Fleet Alliance uploaded details of the entire CMG fleet to its e-fleet management platform, which provides an online fleet management system, as well as offering an extensive and comprehensive suite of reports which allow the interrogation of any aspect of the fleet operation.

Procurement manager Viraj Patel said: “We have been delighted with the service levels, support and attentiveness of Fleet Alliance.”

“We have also found e-fleet to be a very effective and user-friendly fleet management solution and I have been able to use it to download invoices, track vehicle movements and interrogate a number of aspects of the fleet through its extensive reporting capability,” he added.

Fleet Alliance managing director Martin Brown said: “We are delighted to welcome CMG to our corporate client portfolio.  We will work closely with them to manage the fleet in as cost effective and efficient manner as possible.”