The boss behind billion-pound car scheme Motability caught in Britain's benefits row

Independent

02-04-2025

It was meant to be one of Britain's quieter welfare programmes – a behind-the-scenes scheme to help people with serious disabilities lease a car, using their benefits.
But Motability has become a lightning rod in 2025, with questions over billion-pound profits, social media outrage over perceived abuse and a leadership team still battling an old reputation for high pay and poor PR.
The company's latest filings show a total salary bill of £100.8m in 2024. The highest-paid director – understood to be CEO Andrew Miller – received a salary of £460,000 and a total package worth £747,000, down slightly from £765,000 the previous year.
Collectively, directors earned a £1.2m in salary rising to £3.4m overall, including pensions and benefits.
Meanwhile the controversial motor scheme, which allows people claiming a qualifying mobility allowance such as Personal Independence Payment (PIP) to lease a car, has swelled to include more than 815,000 users – up by 200,000 in just two years.
Amid £5bn in government welfare cuts and viral social media commentary, some critics have questioned whether the scheme is still fit for purpose. But according to Motability itself, 96 per cent of its fleet is made up of economy vehicles, not luxury cars, and the vast majority of customers are fully entitled to what they receive.
At the helm of the operation is Miller, the low-key yet media-savvy CEO of Motability Operations (MO), the commercial arm that runs the scheme. He took over in 2020 from Mike Betts, whose extravagant pay package drew fury from MPs and disability rights campaigners alike. Betts was once paid £1.7m in salary plus a £2.2m bonus – a sum the then-chair of the Work and Pensions Committee called "obscene".
While Betts came under fire in some quarters for his luxury lifestyle, Miller has been keen to reset the public image of Motability. That is perhaps highlighted by recent job offerings for a new public affairs manager, senior strategic communications manager and director of public policy, the latter of which the Telegraph reported as being advertised on a six-figure salary. Both the other positions were above £50,000 salaries, while a lower-salaried job of stakeholder engagement manager is now posted with a remit of 'development of relationships with industry and disability groups'.
As for Miller, his background, unusually for a car boss, is in media and consumer brands. He previously served as CEO and CFO of Guardian Media Group, CEO of McDonalds Nordics and held senior finance roles at Auto Trader, Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo. He has also served as a non-executive director at Channel 4 and the AA – experience that has given him a feel for both the political and reputational pressure that can weigh on a publicly accountable organisation.
At his previous roles, Miller has gained a reputation as an expert in managing significant business transition: The Guardian into the digital age, McDonalds through the rise of fast-food delivery, now Motability and its attempts to electrify the best part of a million vehicles in under a decade.
Under Miller's stewardship, Motability is trying to stay ahead of scrutiny and technology alike.
In 2024, the company made a £565m loss – a dramatic fall from its £748m pre-tax profit the year before. Revenue, however, grew nearly 25 per cent to £6.9bn, offset in part due to major investments into the transition to electric vehicles and customer support amid a punishing inflationary climate. The shift includes the installation of 66,000 free home chargers for customers – part of a £300m push to electrify the fleet.
Still, Miller's primary challenge is not just modernising the business but defending its very legitimacy. Owned by four banks – HSBC, Lloyds, NatWest and Barclays – Motability Operations does not pay dividends. Its profits are either reinvested or donated to the overseeing charity Motability, which then distributes grants to customers most in need. But in a cost-of-living crisis, that arrangement is under increasing scrutiny, given the banks still profit from loans interest, management fees and bond issuance.
In part that is down to Motability's success, or at least growth: the more cars they need to buy and the more customers there are to service, the more their borrowing needs can increase. Still, that has led to further critique of the entire arrangement.
In a rare media intervention, Miller recently wrote in The Times that the company removes thousands of ineligible users each year, and that for every £1 spent via disability allowances, £1.50 is returned to the UK economy. He also warned of 'sickfluencers' abusing the system – a nod to the TikTok-fuelled backlash that has sometimes muddied public perception of the scheme.
Miller's defence of the company is also data-driven. The organisation now provides a quarter of a million used cars into the second-hand market each year, making it the largest single-source vehicle supplier in the UK. And while it no longer makes the blockbuster profits seen under Betts, Motability's economic footprint – it claims £4.3bn in annual UK contribution – suggests it's a far cry from the gravy train some accuse it of being.
Still, the storm hasn't fully cleared. Motability has become emblematic of a larger political debate about who is deserving of state support. That argument has only intensified in light of recent welfare reforms – and for Miller, the pressure is unlikely to lift any time soon.
In short, Motability remains one of Britain's most important but misunderstood welfare institutions. And for Andrew Miller – who has swapped the newspaper boardroom for one of the most scrutinised jobs in the third sector – keeping the wheels turning smoothly is proving to be anything but straightforward.