Bryn’s wheels: A review of
council policy was sparked by
previous extravagent spending

A FURTHER review will be carried out into the executive car scheme as the council continues to look at cutting its costs. At a meeting of the Senior Staff Committee on Thursday (Jul 2), councillors held a lengthy debate on the matter. Cllr Bob Kilmister had originally submitteda noticeof motion asking that the council make a 15% cut in the car scheme.

At a previous meeting of the Senior Staff Committee Cllr Kilmister criticised the lack of information and asked for a detailed report to be carried out. That report came back to the committee at Thursday’s meeting but Cllr Kilmister still raised questions over the report. He talked about Co2 emissions that come from the current lease cars and added that the council could look into the possibility of using hybrid or electric cars. The committee were unsure of the implications of using such cars and a further report will now be carried out. Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Kilmister said: “In my submission I stated that I believed the cost of the scheme to be £119,000.

The actual figure is £183,000 which is 53% higher than we were told at the seminar. We are told that 28 officers are entitled so this reaches out at a cost of £6,537 each. I think the scheme still needs further work. I am not against the scheme but I think we need to look at lowering the substantial cost. I still believe a 15% saving is desirable and achievable. Restricting the number of cars could bring a large saving, do our officers actually need such gas-guzzling vehicles. I accept the need for some to have four-wheel drive vehicles but you can now get hybrid-electric four wheel drives. By reducing the director’s and head of paid service’s new lease deals to £6,381, reducing the chief officers to £4,471 a 15% saving would be made. I accept this cannot happen overnight but the new rules should be applied as soon as possible. Having looked on the internet, I found that a four wheel drive vehicle is leased on the same conditions we currently have for a total of £1,944, that was a Kia.

A four-byfour Mitsubishi Outlander, top of the range, electric-hybrid, was available at £3,984. A four-by-four BMW, top of the range, was available at £5,172. All those examples, which are quite elaborate, quite big, would be considered by the public to be more than adequate, are below the rates I have published with the exception of the BMW. It looks to me as if we could still, on the basis of this £7,000, that somebody could still get another Porsche and the whole idea of this was to make sure that we don’t get to the situation where the Porsche was clearly unacceptable. At a time of great cutbacks, if we don’t make a cut here and we reject this we are going to send out entirely the wrong message when we are making major changes to other public services.

I would urge you to look at this deep down but I am not convinced by the report and a 15% saving is not only necessary but desirable.” Chief Finance Officer John Haswell pointed out that he had taken up the opportunity to have a hybrid lease car. He added: “Because of staff turnover, there has been a budget saving over recent years. At present time there are 24 officers with a lease car but that may go up because of recent appointments. Chief Officers are entitled to choose the car that they wish. I now vet all the applications, so somebody could get another Porsche but they wouldn’t because I wouldn’t allow it.” Cllr Tessa Hodgson asked why he wouldn’t let officers drive a Porsche and John Haswell replied it was down to reputation and that there would also be other cars he wouldn’t allow because the council wouldn’t want an officer driving certain types of car.

Council Leader Jamie Adams said: “We shouldn’t be in a position of penalising those in the scheme at the moment because of what has gone on in the past.” Councillors were all in agreement that the scheme should be looked at further including the scope of cars available that will provide savings based on Co2 emissions, clarity on insurance and infrastructure costs for putting in charging points.