The Unity Schools Partnership has launched a salary sacrifice scheme for electric cars from Fleet Alliance to enhance employee benefits and help cut its carbon footprint.

The scheme is designed to offer a wide choice of electric cars at attractive rates via salary sacrifice to qualifying members of staff

The new scheme is designed to offer a wide choice of electric cars at attractive rates via salary sacrifice to qualifying members of staff at each educational establishment in the partnership.

Formed in 2010, the multi-academy trust has charitable status across three counties and some 35 educational establishments – academies and secondary, primary and special schools – under its auspices.

The partnership has around 2,800 members of staff in total and almost all of them are eligible to lease an electric car through the Fleet Alliance salary sacrifice scheme. Staff must have passed their probationary period, be aged over 21, and the salary sacrifice deduction must not take their revised gross pay below the minimum living wage.

Sarah Garner, deputy CEO and director of finance, commented: “We see this as a valuable retention and recruitment tool that has been very well received to date amongst staff members.

“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,” she said.

Garner added that Fleet Alliance account managers had been proactive in initiating the scheme and ensuring its smooth operation.

“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, they will be taking a stand at our forthcoming Unity Day for staff development as well as bringing along vehicles for staff to view.

“We have also been very impressed by the range of electric cars that they have been able to make available through the scheme, 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,” she added.

Fleet Alliance said its salary sacrifice electric car scheme is becoming increasingly popular with organisations and businesses looking to take advantage of the tax and cost savings available, while underlining their green credentials.

Andy Bruce, CEO at the fleet management and leasing specialist, said Unity had been able to take advantage of several key benefits associated with the salary sacrifice car scheme.

“With the very low rate of BiK on electric cars currently and rising to 5% in April 2028, it is well below that of petrol and diesel cars. This makes electric cars very attractive from a tax and cost perspective, and opens them up to wider numbers of employees at very advantageous rates.

“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.”

Bruce continued: “In our opinion, there has never been a better a 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.”