FLEET Alliance is providing a salary sacrifice electric car scheme for the Unity Schools Partnership, a multi-academy trust with charitable status across three counties.
It’s the Glasgow fleet management and leasing broker’s first major educational deal.
The Unity Schools Partnership comprises 35 educational establishments – these include academies and secondary, primary and special schools – spread across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, plus a smaller number in Cambridgeshire and the London Borough of Havering.
There are around 2,800 members of staff in total and almost all of them are eligible to lease an electric car through the scheme, provided they have passed their probationary period, are aged over 21 and the salary sacrifice deduction does not take their take-home pay below the minimum living wage.
Sarah Garner (left), Deputy CEO and Director of Finance at Unity Schools Partnership, said that the scheme is a “valuable retention and recruitment tool” and has been “very well received to date” by staff members.
She praised the pro-active role Fleet Alliance account managers had played in initiating the scheme and ensuring its smooth operation, saying:
“They have been great in marketing the benefits of the scheme to members of staff, and attending live events so that we can openly discuss the scheme and address some of the myth-busting issues that exist around electric cars. For example, Fleet Alliance will be taking a stand at our forthcoming Unity Day for staff development as well as bringing vehicles for staff to view.”
The Unity Schools Partnership added that it was impressed by the range of electric cars available, with no restrictions and “nothing off the table”.
“No one who has taken an electric car through the scheme has regretted it and there have been some very positive comments on our internal intranet,” Sarah added.

MG4 and Tesla Model Y are teacher favourites
The MG4 and Tesla Model Y have been particularly popular so far on the salary sacrifice scheme. Other vehicles taken by Unity to date include the Mercedes EQC and Peugeot e-2008.
Aside from appealing to staff, the scheme is helping the Unity Schools Partnership to meet its carbon reduction targets.
“One of our legal obligations as a multi-academy trust is to report on environmental initiatives through the Streamlining Energy and Carbon Reduction (SECR) report. And offering electric cars through salary sacrifice is one of our carbon-reduction measures under its terms.”
Sarah Garner, Deputy CEO and Director of Finance, Unity Schools Partnership Tweet
Andy Bruce, CEO, Fleet Alliance highlights the financial benefits.
“There are significant savings on vehicles supplied through a salary sacrifice scheme and, we believe, the 4% reduction in National Insurance rates announced by Government in two stages recently is having little or no impact on the effectiveness of these schemes.
“In our opinion, there has never been a better time for organisations who want to provide a wider range of benefits for their members of staff to take advantage of the salary sacrifice benefits that exist on electric cars. Our forward order banks certainly prove that this is the case.”
Fleet Alliance is currently working on implementing several other schemes in the educational sector, and believes that there’s room for growth.

News in brief: Grosvenor rebrands; Fleets unaware of VED changes; New Carwow CFO
Grosvenor is rebranding for the future, many fleets are unaware of increased VED for EVs from April and Carwow has a new CFO.

Select Car Leasing drives support for St Michael’s Hospice with EV donation
Select Car Leasing has donated a brand-new Volkswagen ID.3 electric vehicle to St Michael’s Hospice, serving North Hampshire.

BCF Wessex supports the Best Commercial Vehicle Broker award
IT’S BEEN fastpaced in the commercial vehicle broker space with consolidation the order of the day. But which commercial vehicle broker – standalone or part of a newly acquired group – is the best? The Broker News Awards will showcase the best brokers in the van market, thanks to support from BCF Wessex. BCF Wessex, developers of Gensen software solutions for car

Leasys has exclusive broker opportunity on electric vans
Leasys is offering brokers an exclusive opportunity of new electric vans for immediate delivery and under £300 a month.

Former MotoNovo Director joins Fleet Alliance
Chris Rowthorn has joined Fleet Alliance as he transitions finance companies from MotoNovo to the Glasgow leasing broker

Arval grows its leased fleet by 5.6%
Arval increased its fleet size by 5.6% last year, reaching a total of 1,796,396 vehicles worldwide. Electric vehicles were up by 52%.

Sarah Tooze has been an automotive journalist for more than 15 years, specialising in the fleet and transport sectors. She has held senior positions at industry-leading B2B titles Fleet News and Smart Transport, and led campaigns championing motorists as consumer editor for online used car marketplace Heycar and motoring advice website HonestJohn.co.uk. In 2017 she won the Newspress Automotive Business Journalist award.