@Glos Guy did your 5 series come with insurance? I suspect that’s a large factor for those of us that live in cities. My Cayenne cost almost £200/month in insurance. The maths DO generally make sense for us on motability, but that’s due to the VAT free nature, not MO or their buying power.
To be clear, I completely understand that for the majority of Motability customers the scheme still offers an affordable and worry free way of driving a new car every three years (even though many now seem to end up with their cars much longer than that, which erodes the scheme ‘value’). I further understand that many Motability customers would not be able to go private even if they wanted to and even some that could have a fear or incorrect perception of other options. However, even if I was in one of those categories I could not turn a blind eye to the wanton way that Motability Operations lavish the sacrificed benefits of disabled people on all their staff whilst increasing AP’s and charging for essential adaptations. I am glad that I am not the only person who is able to join the dots and see that these two issues are directly related!
I think that we have established that the Motability scheme is a godsend for many disabled people, but there still lingers the argument that MO salaries are excessive. Nobody would support excessive unjustified salaries, but to attract the right calibre of staff, they must be competitive MO have offices in London, Edinburgh and Bristol ,the first two being the epicentres of business/commerce Etc., and the third being geographically placed to deal with the West Country and Wales. According to Reed employment, the average UK salary for a Customer Service operative is £22,003 , with a low of £20400 and a high of £24500, and for a call centre operative it is some £25500 with the ability to earn into the late £30,000’s. The salaries paid by Motability Operations as reported are an average of £24640 which includes any bonuses , for Customer Services and £25408 in a Call centre. It seems to me, that these incomes , albeit towards the top end of the scale, are not excessive, especially as they are averages which include working in London and Edinburgh.
But you then have to factor in the much better than average perks they get on top of these better than average salaries.