recumbentpanda wrote:My other half works for an organisation that used to be part of the NHS, but has now been 'spun off' ready for privatisation. The work involves visiting patients in the community, and the automatic assumption is that she provides a car. A derisory mileage is paid, but in my view doesn't remotely cover wear & depreciation. Even our choice of car is dictated by the needs of her job as it is the major use of the vehicle. Seems to me a lot of jobs are like this, and it frankly amounts to a 'stealth tax' on the employee and a barrier to employment for non-motorists.
Angry
Have a look at the tax implications. I understand if you are required to use your car for your job and don't get fully reimbursed at the Inland Revenue rate you can claim the difference as an expense.
recumbentpanda wrote:My other half works for an organisation that used to be part of the NHS, but has now been 'spun off' ready for privatisation. The work involves visiting patients in the community, and the automatic assumption is that she provides a car. A derisory mileage is paid, but in my view doesn't remotely cover wear & depreciation. Even our choice of car is dictated by the needs of her job as it is the major use of the vehicle. Seems to me a lot of jobs are like this, and it frankly amounts to a 'stealth tax' on the employee and a barrier to employment for non-motorists.
Angry
Have a look at the tax implications. I understand if you are required to use your car for your job and don't get fully reimbursed at the Inland Revenue rate you can claim the difference as an expense.
Yes, but to be clear, you can't 'claim' the difference between what the employer pays you and what the HMRC rate is. Rather, you can claim it as a work expense through your tax return or by making a direct claim to HMRC each year, the effect being that you then don't pay tax on that amount. And you can claim this for both car and cycle mileage.
I make a small claim every year, not because my employer pays a lower rate than the HMRC ones but because the way they calculate 'business mileage' is different from what qualifies as 'business mileage' for HMRC (main difference relating to site visits starting from home rather than the office). As I live quite near the office, the difference is small, but I stick it in my tax return anyway on the basis that I might as well.
Vorpal wrote:While it is up to your employer (within law) how you spend your working time, they cannot require you to use your own car for transport, unless it is written into your contract,
Employers can vary your contract in many ways without your consent or prior approval, and you're still bound by it. They don't even have to inform you personally, all they have to do is make the information 'available', which could simply be by putting the changes on the company internal website without even emailing you.
thirdcrank wrote:To clarify what has to be in writing in England (don't know about the rest of the UK) , it's a "Written statement of employment particulars"
Apologies. What I said seems to have been incorrect. I was told otherwise a few years ago by a union representative, but perhaps that part of a collective agreement or something, and I misunderstood or misremembered.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
In contract law more widely, it's generally possible to enter into a binding contract without anything in writing. There are exceptions. The main advantages in a contract being in writing are that there's less doubt that a contract was made and there's generally more clarity on all the conditions AKA the small print. AFAIK, all that small print is used to ensure that neither of the parties can later claim that there were implied conditions. Traditionally, a handshake has signalled the conclusion of negotiations and the making of an unwritten contract but like everything else it's still open to argument. All sorts of retail contracts are now agreed over the phone, with the commercial enterprise protecting its position by recording the conversation and drawing attention to its own t&c's but people do delude themselves into believing that if they haven't signed anything, they have no obligations which is often quite untrue.
I've experienced similar things to the OP but I don't own a car - with my current employer (DWP) that's not a problem because there's a strong preference for hiring a car and private mileage is strictly limited, but my previous employer (private sector) would have expenses 'clampdowns' where pre-approval was required to hire a car or buy a train ticket but not to claim private mileage.
What this meant was that for pretty much any trip I had to get a colleague to drive me - something which is subtly demeaning. It doesn't sound like much, but certain managers would always prefer to approach the people who were prepared to 'drop everything' and drive somewhere - anyone like me who needed to plan their travel or get someone else to drive was avoided. It meant two people had to go to a meeting where one would otherwise do.
I don't think there's anything deliberate about any of this - simply that most people use their car for every journey and can't see beyond that.
My wife is a council employee. The council will not permit her to use their (underused ) car park unless I insure the family car for business use. If they want to send staff on an in house training course at another site, "social domestic and pleasure" won't cover it. They wont permit you to come to your regular place of work in a car unless you are willing and able to use said car to visit other sites and transport colleagues as well. Which is a bit much for non mobile workers. Their dedicated parking is maybe 30% utilised on a busy day. I reckon that's an employer barrier.
Trying to retain enough fitness to grow old disgracefully... That hasn't changed!
THE COUNCIL WAS ELECTED. They sound like our council in Rotherham ..... time to vote them out ...... yea !, like council employees will vote against their "Employers". I think the phrase is "Client Employees".
Why do people put up with this ... I can think of no answer..... Or you could seek employment in the private sector ..
“Quiet, calm deliberation disentangles every knot.”
Be more Mike.
The road goes on forever.
My organisation (public sector) is the complete opposite of the OP's. We are encouraged to use our bikes or the pool Brompton bike, but for most journeys its not practical to go solely by bike. We are poitively discouraged from using private cars for work. The first choice is always public transport, mostly trains. Most of our offices are close to stations, for this very reason. If you can't go by public transport, then you hire a car using the Enterprise contract, which only costs £20-30 a day plus fuel. We don't have on-site staff parking, so nobody has their car available for them to use anyway.
The very last option is using your own car. You have to prove you have business use insurance before it's allowed and you get re-imbursed at 40p a mile. I gave up insuring my car for work as I used it so infrequently that it wasn't worth it. it's much more relaxing travelling to meetings by train + bike, even though it can take a bit longer.
Not necessarily. My local borough councillors were appointed, not elected, because no-one stood against them in the last election or the one before that. Next week is different, there are candidates standing against them, but there are still several wards in the council where members will be appointed unopposed.
I know this isn't the key point here, but insuring your car for Class 1 business use is likely to be a trivial amount. I automatically insure my cars for Class 1 each year just in case and it adds the princely sum of nil to each policy.
I don't do many business miles - perhaps travelling to a different office or a client a handful of times a year - certainly less than 1,000 miles pa - but I looked into getting Class 1 business cover for the convenience and was surprised to find out it added nothing to the cost of my policy.
I have been asked to help write a cycling policy for the organisation I work for. I was wondering if anyone had an example of a good one. I want it to be concise, progressive and enabling.
Does anyone have a good example of a policy that they could share with us as an example.
What sort of cycling? Do you want something on the order of an active travel policy? Or is this a policy for people who cycle as part of their jobs? Or a 'we are cycle-friendly' kind of thing?
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.” ― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Well my organisation - a large Welsh public sector body, has just announced that it is to end its lease car scheme. About 400 people are going to loose their lease cars so. This means we have redrawn our travel decision tree which people use to decide which type of transport to take! It's not as silly as it sounds (the decison tree thing) especially as we can now raise the profile of cycling for work journeys.
I am looking mainly for help in a document that sets out that we support cycling for work journeys and explains as simply as possible what we need to do to use a bike in work. I already use my bike for lots of work journeys which i really enjoy.
I hope to avoid references to helmets, excessive H&S rules and don't want to have lots of forms to fill in about competence, etc. I would like the document to support staff who have worries about cycling and protect them from overly fussy managers who may want to put barriers in their way. I would also like to make sure that, for example, when someone books a meeting somewhere that they make sure that there is some kind of secure bike parking there.
Apologies. What I said seems to have been incorrect. I was told otherwise a few years ago by a union representative, but perhaps that part of a collective agreement or something, and I misunderstood or misremembered. 
