The scheme is being made available to over 7,700 eligible employees, who will benefit from savings on tax and National Insurance as well as from the government’s negotiated manufacturer discounts, whilst the council will also benefit from reduced costs.

Shokat Lal, assistant director at Coventry City Council, said: ‘Like all councils, keeping and motivating good staff while reducing the cost of delivering services is a fine balancing act. We are constantly looking for innovative ways to achieve this while continuing to provide a first-class service to the public.

‘The launch of a salary sacrifice scheme for cars helps us to become an employer of choice and deliver significant savings to the Council by way of reduced National Insurance and pension contributions. We can even help the environment by choosing the best cars for reducing CO2 emissions.

‘After a long consultation period and exhaustive tendering process, we appointed Leasedrive due to its long history of successfully delivering salary sacrifice car schemes and its reputation for customer service.’

David Brown, business development manager at Leasedrive, said: ‘Once appointed, we rapidly produced a Coventry City Council mycar website and roadshows at Council locations, which were attended by hundreds of employees.

‘Many of the employees were attracted by the concept of fixed motoring costs for the next three years. Within the first ten days we had taken over 30 orders.’