I just contacted my finance department about my desire to get another bike on our Halfords’s Cycle to Work Scheme, and this is the response I got:

We have to legally give a window of opportunity so the earliest practical opportunity would be early April scheme would close start of May first deductions possible 28th May payroll.

Could this be true? Is it workplace-specific? Or is the finance department just being evasive because its members can’t be arsed?

Can someone who understands how the whole thing works point me in the direction of the documents I can use to refute this (if applicable)?

Ultimately, I know that both of my brothers – one of whom works in an institution identical to my own – just bought bikes through C2W with no issues whatsoever.

Most places (big employers) only open the schemes for a fixed period (my employers is June) as it sync’s all the sales at the same time in so much as changes to pay roll etc

Thanks for that. So it sounds like my department isn’t being all that unreasonable.

^^ that.

Pretty common approach.

yup, my old company only did it at one specific time of the year

They are being unreasonable. Its not a “scheme” its just a tax free benefit up to £1000. No different to any tax free benefit.

Our staff buy a bike (plus bits and pieces) I pay them £1000 towards it and deduct that off their pay gross, monthly for a year or more.

So one letter and one adjustment to their gross salary. Takes about one minute to do it.

I think what they mean is

We have to legally [b]To ease the administrative burden we[/b] give a window of opportunity so the earliest practical opportunity would be early April scheme would close start of May first deductions possible 28th May payroll.

which is probably fair enough if it’s a large company.

As above, varies by company, but is very common. Its like that here too

What IHN said I reckon.

We have a “benefits window” every year where we can make changes to what benefits we choose (and by “choose” I mean “buy”). Bugger all to do with any laws though, it’s so they’re not making fiddly little changes every day.

it’s so they’re not making fiddly little changes every day.

Which is actually their job 😛

If you knew the scale of fiddly little changes that get processed in most big employers, you’d understand why things like this are a major hassle!

It’s a benefit for employees that is generally well valued though so most employers like to offer it