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Communication
ACFO's new chairman envisages a change to the way the organisation communicates with its members, with a potential move away from regional meetings and more emphasis on seminar sessions around specific topics, such as the Olympic one conducted in 2012 and the electric vehicle seminar that took place earlier this year, backed up by more utilisation of the new website that was launched in 2013.
"The regional meetings are still important, but people are finding it harder and harder to justify getting out," explains Pryor. "People are now sharing roles across three or four things, and open meetings are difficult to attend. I hope we have set a trend with some of the seminars, starting with the Olympic one that had over 100 people."
ACFO has pulled together a list of 12 potential topics for 2015, which have gone to the national council with a view to two or three of them taking place next year, depending on which are likely to attract the best attendance and sponsor partners.
Pryor's feeling with the regional meetings is that they should turn into spring and autumn briefing sessions, giving members an oversight of the developments coming in the next half-year or so that will impact them, and have a more local emphasis. Two examples of the kind of topics that could have been discussed were the Scottish region and the Commonwealth games, and the Midlands impact of the HS2 rail link, as well as nationwide issues such as the removal of tax discs.
But Arcadia's fleet boss feels the future of the company car is secure, even with the looming threat of ever-increasing benefit-in-kind bands that even falling vehicle emission figures won't mitigate. "I personally think fleet operators need to make people understand that, yes, they are paying 18% BIK, but what does that equate to and what does it cost if you opt-out," he says.
"It's not just BIK, but what does the car cost you? It's important to understand the true cost - if you didn't have a company car then what would it cost you? Do people know the interest rate they are borrowing on, the cost of servicing, tyres, MoT, depreciation?"
But Pryor is still well aware of his full-time job managing Arcadia's travel and expense needs, mainly because of the unexpected nature of what can occur.
"Because it's ever-changing, you don't know what's going to happen when the phone goes. It's as unpredictable as that," he concludes.
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