As one of Australia’s largest independent family service organisations, Berry Street is a charitable organisation dedicated to serving children, young people, and families in need. Some of their key programs and services include family violence support services, education services, trauma services and much more. Originally established in the 19th century, Berry Street has spent almost 150 years caring for those in need.
Smartfleet is proud to call Berry Street one of our valued clients. It’s a privilege to provide them with fleet management services that support them in their meaningful work. Since 2016, Smartfleet has helped the team with core fleet management, vehicle finance, identification of cost reduction opportunities, and the streamlining of their fleet operations.
Neil Hutchins, Berry Street’s Head of Commercial Services, provides some insights into how they make use of their fleet:
Can you please tell us about the Berry Street organisation and its history?
In the late 1800s, infant mortality was high due to illness and poverty, and unwanted children were often abandoned in public places or died from infanticide. A group of women shared concerns about the plight of Victorian children and their mothers and formed a committee to provide a safe home for women and children facing adversity. Berry Street’s journey, and its commitment to ensuring children and families were safe, hopeful and thriving, had begun.
Berry Street, then called the Victorian Infant Asylum, relocated from its rented house in Fitzroy to a new home in Berry Street, East Melbourne. A move made possible through fundraising and government support. It is this address that is the enduring memory of the organisation for many Victorians and that has shaped the name we know today.
What kind of work does Berry Street currently focus on?
Berry Street believes that children, young people and families should be safe, thriving, and hopeful. Today, Berry Street is one of Australia’s largest independent family service organisations. We provide a diverse range of programs to around 35,000 people in Victoria each year.
Some of our key programs and services are:
We have a strong focus on reorientating the child and family system, family violence services and education system towards early intervention and prevention. We want to make sure that children and families receive the support they need before issues spiral out of control.
How big is Berry Street’s fleet?
Our fleet has over 400 motor vehicles, which is quite a medium-sized fleet for a not-for-profit.
What are the main purposes and uses of your fleet?
Most of our fleet would be considered a tool of trade. It enables our staff to be mobile and responsive in providing key outreach support to children, young people and families. Use of the pool booking module helps us maximise utilisation for shared vehicles.
How important is your fleet to your organisation?
Our fleet is a major component in allowing Berry Street staff to be mobile and agile in delivering our services, over a large geographical area throughout Victoria.
How long has Berry Street been working with Smartfleet, and which services are you receiving?
Berry Street’s relationship with Smartfleet has been more than six years. They’ve worked with us to identify strategic objectives, with a roadmap put in place to monitor our progress and delivery.
Our relationship with Smartfleet covers a number of different areas in the overall running of our fleet… That covers vehicle acquisition and disposal, vehicle finance services, operational management and advice as well as a range of fleet management services such as maintenance, fuel, e-tags.
It’s a good way to maximise our program funding and make sure that we are trying to run the fleet as lean as we possibly can.
What benefits have you seen since partnering with Smartfleet?
The close working relationship with our Client Relationship Manager, along with the customer portal, allows us to have strong visibility of our fleet. This assists us with making informed business decisions with the running of our fleet. Having Smartfleet managing the day-to-day operations provides consistent and reliable support to our drivers 24/7.
Have you seen any cost savings from your partnership with Smartfleet, and if so, how have these impacted your organisation?
Yes, we have been able to strategically partner with Smartfleet to make decisions to reduce the size of the fleet and reduce the running costs, by making informed decisions on vehicle financing and changeovers. They have also delivered costs savings to us year-on-year through identification of initiatives such as rectification of damage at end of lease, accident management incident reporting, data and reporting to target incident reduction, and lease tracking and variations - helping us with significant cost savings.
What can you say about the kind of service that Smartfleet offers?
They always meet their deadlines, they’re always accurate in what they provide, they’re always available, whether that be for our drivers on the road or whether that be internally for myself and my team.
It really was a pleasure to hear from Neil and discover more about Berry Street and their important work. Feel free to check out more on their website here.
And to find out more about how we can help you save money on your fleet, click here.