Launched to complete the council’s range of transport solutions, the scheme joins existing salary sacrifice arrangements covering cycles, buses and park-and-ride, all of which are being offered to more than 13,600 eligible employees within its 18,000-strong workforce.

The launch of the scheme is also intended to provide new car accessibility to a much wider audience to employees, while enabling substantial savings in National Insurance and pension contributions.

The council selected Tusker’s SS4C scheme under the terms of a Pan Government Collaborative Framework Agreement originally set up by North Yorkshire County Council when it established its own salary sacrifice car scheme with Tusker three years ago.

Under the agreement, the Tusker scheme is available for use by all UK contracting public sector authorities, including Government Departments, Non-Departmental Public Bodies, the NHS, Local Authorities, Police Authorities and Emergency Services.

The City Council set a carbon ceiling of 120g/km to encourage staff to choose fuel efficient and more environmentally friendly vehicles on the scheme, which is inclusive of motor insurance, servicing and maintenance, Road Fund Licence, roadside assistance, tyres and glass, plus protection against redundancy, resignation and maternity leave.

The scheme has already seen more than 50 new car orders being placed within the first few weeks of going live.

Cory Laywood, HR, pay & benefits manager at Leicester City Council, who is responsible for overseeing the scheme’s introduction, said it ‘ticked all the boxes’.

‘This new salary sacrifice car scheme completes the number of transport solutions we can offer our staff to enable them to get to work. We also view it as the only real way to offer our staff a new car as cost effectively as possible.

‘It also offers our staff the widest possible choice of new vehicles from a wide variety of manufacturers – all supplied by local dealers. The cars will also be maintained and serviced locally which was another major advantage from our perspective and ensured that the scheme “spend” stayed within the local area.

‘All employees have access to an online portal which is very easy to use and allows staff to browse through the full range of available cars, or drill down and search for a car to match their exact specifications,’ he said.