Newcastle City Council – Fleet Review

The Council fleet consisted of well over 1000 vehicles and plant items, which were used to deliver a wide range of public services, including Refuse, Cleansing, Grounds Maintenance, Property Maintenance, and Social Services.

The Challenge

• Total fleet spend was high and the Council was under extreme pressure to reduce its overall budgets.
• A new Head of Integrated Transport had been appointed but needed support to conduct a rapid review of the wide range of opportunities for reducing costs across the fleet.
• There was a large amount of data on the fleet operations, but little understanding of true costs or performance.

Our Approach

• We worked as an integral part of the Fleet team, to validate work which had already been started, and to pursue many additional ideas.
• Within 4 weeks we had constructed an agreed baseline of costs and performance, and identified areas where data needed to be improved.
• In a further 4 weeks, we challenged all areas of the operation and carried out additional analysis and data gathering to demonstrate the clear potential for savings across procurement, operation and maintenance of the fleet.
• All savings were rigorously reviewed and challenged by the Council team and operational priorities were factored in.

The Results

• Payback on the Council’s investment was <3 months, based on savings which could be implemented immediately.
• Total savings were identified in excess of 10% of the fleet budget.
• We developed a prioritised 18-month action plan to deliver the savings.