How we operate

We’re here to give our customers access to affordable, worry-free mobility. Find out how we deliver on this promise as an organisation.

How does Motability Operations deliver the Scheme?

We deliver the Motability Scheme under contract to Motability, a national charity set up with all party parliamentary support in 1977 and incorporated by Royal Charter. The role of Motability is to set the strategic policies and direction of the Motability Scheme and oversee its performance to ensure it meets the needs of disabled people.

The Scheme is designed to help customers use their mobility allowance to find affordable vehicles that suit their disability needs.

We are owned by the UK's four major banks - Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS. When customers lease a vehicle through us, they choose to pay their mobility allowance to Motability Operations for three or, in some cases, five years. All our profits are re-invested for the benefit of customers.

What does Motability Operations offer customers?

We want to give customers the best possible value and service. To achieve this, we offer:

Outstanding customer support
Over 2,000 affordable vehicles supplied through 5,000 car dealers
Specific solutions for specialised needs
Excellent value for money

How does Motability Operations keep costs down?

The scale of the Motability Scheme enables us to leverage discounts and efficiencies, offering customers affordable mobility wherever they live and whatever their household circumstances.

We are highly cost-efficient with tight management of costs such as insurance, overheads and depreciation, as well as being financially stable with a prudent approach to risk management. We’re also proud of our strong relationships with suppliers, manufacturers and dealers. This means we can keep costs down and pass the savings to our customers.

How does Motability Operations work with the community?

Our community projects, charitable donations and environmental policies reflect our company values, encouraging sustainability and community engagement. We do this by:

Offering environmentally-friendly cars to give our customers a greener option when they’re choosing a car
Maintaining sustainable, environmentally friendly offices with an emphasis on recycling and keeping waste to a minimum
Offering best-practice disability access in and around our buildings
Lowering CO2 emissions as a registered member of the Carbon Trust
Actively encouraging our employees to get involved in local community projects
Making charitable donations to sponsor and support employees’ local initiatives through the ‘mycommunity’ project
Supporting and funding for other charitable ventures

Delivering value for our customers

The way we deliver the Scheme is designed to maximise the value we provide to customers. We are commercial in our approach and regularly benchmark ourselves to ensure we deliver best practice.

Our revenues

Motability Operations’ revenue comprises rental income from customers’ mobility allowances, and proceeds from the re-sale of vehicles at the end of lease

When a customer joins the Motability Scheme, they choose from a wide range of vehicles, assign their mobility allowance to Motability Operations and lease the vehicle from us. For many vehicles, the mobility allowance covers the full cost of the lease; but customers can also make an additional advance payment and select from a wider range of vehicles.

We aim to use our rental income to give customers the best possible products and services.

Our other main income stream, representing nearly half our total revenue, is the resale of vehicles that are returned to us at the end of their leases. We sold over 180,000 vehicles in the year to September 2020, generating over £2.1 billion in revenue. Getting the best possible value for our resale vehicles is critical to keeping lease prices on current vehicles stable and affordable for our customers.

We do not receive any grant or funding from the Government.

Our financing

We finance the Scheme by issuing bonds in the Sterling and European Debt Capital Markets, through securing term-finance and credit facilities from the major UK banks and through the liquidity provided by our capital base

Motability Operations is a standalone company, financed by commercial funding arrangements and by reinvesting profits.

Our current financing is supplied by a blend of bonds issued on UK and European debt capital markets and credit facilities with the major UK banks.

Our A/A1 credit rating with Standard & Poor's and Moody's enables us to access these credit markets on competitive terms, and underpins our ability to operate the Motability scheme sustainably.

We also use our capital base to provide financing, meeting liquidity requirements and supporting our long-term financial stability.

Together these financing facilities give us a diversity of funds and a carefully managed maturity profile, minimising refinancing and liquidity risk. We have sufficient liquidity headroom to meet our financing needs in the medium term.

Our suppliers

We manage a range of key suppliers to ensure that we provide customers with a consistent UK-wide proposition, representing excellent value for money and delivering first-class customer service

We aim to provide a UK-wide and universally available proposition to a consistently high standard. In order to deliver this we engage with and manage a range of suppliers. We aim to not only deliver value through every aspect of our supply chain, but also ensure that suppliers deliver the highest standards of customer service.

We source vehicles from over 30 vehicle manufacturers and use a variety of adaptation and conversion specialists.

Through our national network of around 5,000 approved Motability Dealers, we oversee the delivery of the full ‘end-to-end’ customer process – from application for and delivery of the vehicle, through servicing, maintenance and repair, to the return of the vehicle at the end of contract. This involves the training of over 14,000 Motability Dealer Specialists and results in over one million transactions between Motability Operations and the dealer network each year.

We manage a number of other key suppliers who deliver other elements of the ‘worry-free’ package, including prioritised roadside assistance, and tyre and windscreen replacement.

Our insurance

Insurance is an essential element of our 'worry-free' proposition. Our new insurance arrangements provide an efficient and sustainable structure which ensures we offer value and continued peace of mind for our customers

We reconfigured our insurance arrangements in 2013 to ensure that they continue to provide value for money and are sustainable in the long term. Whilst customers continue to benefit from fully comprehensive insurance provided by RSA, since 1 October 2013, Motability Operations has retained a proportion of premium exposure through its A rated reinsurance captive MO Reinsurance Ltd (MORL).

MORL's net exposure is contained through the placement of a conservatively structured reinsurance programme, which spreads insurance supply amongst a number of highly-rated reinsurers and, in so doing, diversifies risk and ensures stability of insurance provision in the future.

RSA continues to provide policy and claims administration activities through its dedicated RSA Motability unit in Liverpool.

The efficient financial model that underpins the new arrangements brings with it additional financial benefits, all of which are passed on to customers.

Our vehicle remarketing

Our ability to optimise the market value of the used-vehicles as they are returned to us at the end of lease is a core competency for Motability Operations, and fundamental to delivering affordability and stability in lease prices for customers

Unexpected volatility in the used-car market may impact our ability to realise the predicted value of our vehicles. This is our single largest risk. We are currently required to sell over 220,000 cars into the used-car market each year (over 600 per day, seven days a week), as these are returned to us at the end of lease.

The effective deployment of this activity, and therefore the realisation of the optimal value for these assets, is fundamental to protecting the affordability and sustainability of the Scheme. To achieve this we operate a market-leading online trade sales channel ‘mfldirect’, through which we sell to an actively managed buying base of over 3,500 dealers. In September 2020 we sold 77% of vehicles through this online channel. Vehicles that are not sold online are routed through our national auction programme.

Our people

Our business culture is customer focused and performance driven. We set challenging targets and we encourage our people to think and act commercially whilst remaining aligned to our values

We believe that our people are our greatest asset. By retaining a motivated workforce we deliver consistently strong performance working within a business culture aligned to our values and principles.

Through our workforce of over 900 employees we operate the Motability Scheme. We challenge our people to be customer focused and to think and act commercially. This supports our goals of delivering excellent customer service and ensuring that we provide value.

We are committed to paying our people at least the level of the current minimum ‘Living Wage’, as calculated by the Living Wage Foundation, for their base location.

Through our customer call centre we handle 1.2 million calls every year, with a target of over 80% of calls being answered within 20 seconds.

Each year we participate in an independently measured culture survey which measures employee views across a range of topics such as engagement, customer focus and leadership. The 2019 survey results again showed that Motability Operations continues to outperform the UK High-Performing Organisations’ benchmark across all categories.

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