5 ways electric vehicles help the public sector meet strategic goals

Public sector organisations must deliver on a wide range of objectives, including meeting government standards, improving public health and supporting other public sector organisations. Setting up a sought-after employee car benefit scheme can help your organisation do all this and more. As we explain in this article that explores five ways electric vehicles could help your public sector organisation meet its strategic objectives.

1. EVS CAN HELP YOU DEMONSTRATE YOU’RE AN ETHICAL ORGANISATION

Public sector organisations are held to high ethical standards on all sorts of topics, including the climate emergency faced by the planet and its inhabitants. As public perceptions change around this topic – two thirds of Britain’s recognise that there’s a climate emergency and 64% say government is responsible for taking action on climate change – civic organisations need to respond.

Cars are a highly visible indicator of an organisation’s stance on emissions and its willingness to take an ethical position. By adopting EVs, the public sector will be on the front foot, demonstrating its social conscience and taking action in the fight against the climate crisis.

2. ELECTRIC VEHICLES HELP WITH GOVERNMENT EMISSIONS TARGETS

As with many other government initiatives and legislation – think equal pay – the public sector is expected to lead the way. Reducing emissions is no different and electric cars have a major role to play in helping to minimise the UK’s CO2 in line with the government’s net zero emission target.

Replacing fossil-fuelled fleets with electric cars offers a simple way to make a substantial contribution to the government’s emissions targets.

Replace 50 petrol, 1.0 litre VW Golfs with the electric e-Golf and your organisation could save around 88 tonnes of CO2 per annum. Multiply this figure by the size of your fleet and your grey fleet (your employees’ own vehicles used to commute to work) and you can see the significant emissions’ savings that could be made.

3. CONTRIBUTE TO CLEAN AIR TARGETS AND IMPROVE PUBLIC HEALTH

Public health is another major area of focus, particularly for the NHS and local government organisations. So anything you can do to help in this area is a big plus.

One of the major drivers for electric vehicles is the poor air quality suffered by people living around the UK, particularly in inner cities. Replacing fossil-fueled vehicles with electric ones will reduce your organisation’s contribution to emissions and all the other nasties that pollute our air.

As of March 2019, there were an estimated 5.39m public sector employees. Assuming car ownership rates of around 50%, replacing public sector employees’ cars with EVs could significantly reduce the number of fossil-fueled vehicles on the road. Which would help deliver cleaner, better quality air for local residents.

4. GREENER CARS HELP WITH EMPLOYEE ATTRACTION AND RETENTION

EVs aren’t all about hitting big government-led targets. Your organisation also needs to attract and retain quality employees with an attractive employee benefit proposition.

Electric cars offer a great way to do this. Because they emit no CO2, or if you adopt Ultra-Low Emission Vehicles very low levels of CO2:

• Electric cars attract 0% Benefit in Kind with ULEVs’ BIK starting at just 2% – great for employees’ wallets
• Offer staff the option to drive a car they might not otherwise be able to afford
• Support the recruitment and retention of younger generations who want to work for ethical, socially conscious employers

5. PUBLIC MONEY NEEDS TO BE WELL SPENT

You’ll have heard it a million times, but every penny that civic organisations spend is public money. Which means it needs to be money well spent. EVs offer a commercially savvy alternative to fossil-fuelled vehicles because the same amazing tax breaks they offer to staff also apply to organisations.

How much could you save in employer NICs by switching from a 1.0l petrol VW Golf to an electric Golf? During the 2020-2021 tax year, changing one vehicle could save an organisation over £700. That’s well over £2,000 over the course of a three-year lease. Multiply this up across an entire fleet – both company cars for senior staff and the grey fleet – and that’s a significant saving.

When it comes to providing sought after employee car benefits, it’s not obvious how cars can contribute to strategic public sector objectives. However, electric vehicles offer the public sector multiple reasons to introduce or maintain the provision of this popular employee benefit.

How can your organisation achieve all these brilliant outcomes? By ensuring your employee car benefit provides a wide range of electric and ultra-low emission vehicles for staff to choose from.