Well it says this in that link you sent….
Seems pretty clear! Ask them if her travel is “authorised”. If they say yes then she can claim!

Travel and Subsistence Allowance
When you use your car or bicycle for authorised business purposes, mileage will be reimbursed at the HMRC (Inland Revenue) rate. The Council has available pool vehicles for business use.

I’ve just completed my P87. A few years I was in a similar situation submitted the P87 (or its equivalent) I got a cheque back from HMRC and they altered my tax code

“Not of you are a teacher in Scotland. None of the people who come on my courses get mileage. Next week I have teachers from all over Moray and Highland travelling to Inverness – I dont think any will get mileage.”

interesting as mrs t-r(a teacher) seems to get it when justified….offsite training courses & official requested offsite meetings + SQA days.

HMRC rules for claiming mileage are that you are not allowed to claim from your home to normal place of work (a single place from my understanding) which for sake of discussion is 10 miles.
You are allowed to claim the extra for travel to other places if they are in excess of the distance to your fixed place of work. So if site B is 15 miles, then you can claim for 5 miles.

Not so. You can claim mileage from home to your ‘other place’

Does Mrs OAB’s contract state she has to have a car?, if not then I think they’re on very dodgy ground all round, could she cycle to work on a few occasions just to make the point.
I had a heated discussion with a previous employer about carrying work items and needing then business insurance.
I used my motorcycle for a few days and got the point home that how we travel to and from work is our own choice, another colleague who lived close by cycled in!
I hope you manage to get this resolved.

I can’t believe a local authority could be allowed to legally work this way. Small business ‘look the other way’ sort of thing I’d not be surprised if people need the work, but this is a compliance issue for them, and LG is about the most risk averse environment I’ve known.

How you commute is your business. How you travel for business is their concern.

They should provide a hire care, alternative transport or reimburse travel costs at an agreed rate which should cover fuel, wear & tear, business insurance if you are prepared to use your own transport.

I can see why you might not want to rock the boat, but as soon as I’m out of pocket I see that as an invitation to rock away 🙂 – you and they aren’t a charity.

It’ll all come down to her contract – it’s no usual, but I know people who have more than one fixed location to work and are expected to commute to whichever one they’re meant to be working from that day – the rub is whether they have to switch locations in the day – than that’s a business trip.

She can complete a P87 to reclaim expenses, but it’s worth remember whilst they might say she can count .38p per mile as an expense of employment – she will only get the TAX back on that amount, not the whole amount – the good thing is once she’s done it once, they usually adjust your tax code until you tell them otherwise.

HMRC though may consider it all commuting though.

I did a direct/fixed contract for a council once – car allowances etc were seen as a way of supplementing peoples salary out of a different budget. My line manager had an essential car user allowance and never went anywhere. I didn’t, and had to attend meetings at about 20 different sites quite routinely. They were too mean to pay for taxis, I was just expected to take my car at my own expense.

So I refused to take my car unless it was pouring down and rode my bike – they couldn’t really stop me – free training time ! Major result.

I can’t believe a local authority could be allowed to legally work this way

Brassneck, that was my surprise as well to be honest – my suspicion is that it falls into the classic local authority/council trap of someone In a position of incompetence not knowing the answer and therefore saying ‘no, you can’t claim it back’ because they either i) can’t be arsed or ii) don’t know how to find out the proper answer.

Brassneck, that was my surprise as well to be honest – my suspicion is that it falls into the classic local authority/council trap of someone In a position of incompetence not knowing the answer and therefore saying ‘no, you can’t claim it back’ because they either i) can’t be arsed or ii) don’t know how to find out the proper answer.

Agreed!

Does Mrs OAB’s contract state she has to have a car?

This. If there’s nothing in her contract then she should refuse to provide a car for business purposes. They can provide her with a pool car if they want her to travel to other sites.

We had the same situation at my employer – some staff had their expenses cut so they chose not to provide their cars any more. The employer ended up having to pay for taxis.

“I used my motorcycle for a few days and got the point home that how we travel to and from work is our own choice, another colleague who lived close by cycled in!”

I once got pulled aside and told i needed to have a more “reputable” car for client visits…..(a string of old modified 4x4s and vans were his issue)

” i cycle most days anyway so im not paying to have a shiny depreciating asset on the drive , when you start paying me to have a car you can start dictating what i choose to drive” is the correct reply, No more has been said.

This. If there’s nothing in her contract then she should refuse to provide a car for business purposes. They can provide her with a pool car if they want her to travel to other sites.

Small rural nurseries with one room and a couple of staff, all 30+ Miles from Stirling.
Pool cars are in stirling.
So she would wait for the four times daily bus, to stirling, to borrow a car to drive back 30 odd miles to next site, back to Stirling, to then wait for the end of day for next bus back.
It just doesn’t work.

I think that the core issue is that heads and managers have been told from top that no mileage is paid – and a rumpus with union would be needed. This needs to be balanced against the fact that they have all just been fighting unsuccessful,y against austerity cuts to peripatetic nursery staff and many more cuts are lined up. There is a deep culture in so many councils, this one included.

Would moving a couple of pool cars to the other sites not solve the issue?

Ridiculous situation, and one I’d be saying no to. If work needed me to attend sites other than my contractual place of work, they’d be reimbursing me accordingly. I fail to see why an employee should ever be incurring business expenses out of their own pocket.

I’m fairly sure (though I’d have to check) that non-commute mileage is calculated from your regular place of work, not from home or (home minus regular commute distance). I could’ve sworn that’s what we got told when they tightened up on people taking the wee a couple of years back.

So she would wait for the four times daily bus, to stirling, to borrow a car to drive back 30 odd miles to next site, back to Stirling, to then wait for the end of day for next bus back.
It just doesn’t work.

I would state that’s the employers problem. The car comes to the employee in that situation not the other way round. Many a hire car left for me outside the house when we weren’t allowed to use our own cars for travel in one job.

Ridiculous situation, and one I’d be saying no to. If work needed me to attend sites other than my contractual place of work, they’d be reimbursing me accordingly. I fail to see why an employee should ever be incurring business expenses out of their own pocket.

+1.
Further, I’d not even use my own car without a vehicle allowance, never mind no fuel payment.

It is not sustainable. What happens if her car breaks down ? What if she decides she doesn’t want to run a car any more, do they sack her ? They should assign her a pool car for the week, or manage their staff rotas competently so that using a pool car is practical. IME you never have to look far in cooncils some small puddle of useless management having wide ranging consequences.

Matt who has actually told her that expenses will not be paid?

Would moving a couple of pool cars to the other sites not solve the issue?

As I said, rural location. Would you justify two cars sat 24/7, just for a couple of journey’s in a week? We are talking about a couple of trips in any given week, some of which would fall into ‘just commuting’ – i.e. she arranges meeting at end of day, so is able to work with kids all day and then do meeting on the way home, adding less than a mile to normal daily commute.
As a team have changes in working arrangements due over the next 14 months – meaning that they will be based at all schools across the region, from one central base. This is starting now, with more training being led elsewhere by them, so mileage is starting to creep in…

Head Teachers, Head of service and colleagues who have asked before have said ‘no’.

We are going to question it more – will let you know where it goes.

Drop your missus off at work in the mornings.

“Ok Mrs_Outandabout, we need you to visit $site today.”

“I’d love to. How?”

As I said, rural location. Would you justify two cars sat 24/7, just for a couple of journey’s in a week?

I hear you. But at the end of the day, that’s their problem, not yours. They need to provide a solution which enables her to do her job, whether that’s pool cars or taxis or whatever. Providing her own transport is doing them a favour, they should be paying ~45p/mile for the fuel and wear & tear on her private vehicle.

As an aside, does she have business insurance for travel to these meetings she’s going to?

I guess it depends how much she wants to keep the job and how much of a fuss she is willing to make.

If it was me, I simply wouldn’t go unless they covered the costs.

One to watch out for is she should have business insurance for what she is doing, some policies add it for free but not all.

The employer is asking for trouble as far as I am concerned, if she had an accident while doing business mileage, not only would she be in trouble for not having the correct insurance etc but they open themselves up to all sorts of H&S issues.

Somebody at my company had a minor accident a few years back while travelling between sites (we do pay mileage) and the company had to answer a lot of questions about duty of care etc. There is now a rule that you have to prove that your car is suitable, belongs to you, taxed, MOT’d and has business insurance before you are allowed to use it and claim any business mileage.

Seems the be the way that Scottish LAs work. My missus works for Fife LA. She covers the entirety of Fife and occasionally has to head over to Edinburgh or Stirling or Perth. Initially she did most of her work from the Cupar office, not far from our home, but Fife LA decided it would be better to relocate her “fixed” office to Kirkcaldy. Now she can only claim mileage for any travel for work further out than Kirkcaldy, despite driving approximately 300 business miles a week. Probably 90% of her travel doesn’t meet this criteria, as opposed to the 90% of travel that did when she was based in Cupar. It seems a little too convenient a decision for my liking, and appears to serve no purpose other than reducing the amount she costs the LA in mileage claims.

I can’t believe a local authority could be allowed to legally work this way. Small business ‘look the other way’ sort of thing I’d not be surprised if people need the work, but this is a compliance issue for them, and LG is about the most risk averse environment I’ve known.

I would, based on hearing of how friends OH’s who are teachers and having worked with the NHS and dealt with the Council.

She needs to either raise an issue, or just do it and claim the (tax back) on the 45ppm.

FWIW all the private businesses I’ve worked at have usually paid the full rate.

Can Mrs O&A explore car-share with a co-worker into her place of work? It would only have to be for a few days while hers is ‘fixed’.

Head Teachers, Head of service and colleagues who have asked before have said ‘no’.

Given the agreement published on the SNCT website seems to indicate that’s wrong she would be perfectly reasonable in contacting Someone for clarification in writing of the official policy rather than relying on, what amounts to, word of mouth.

For what it’s worth, I can understand employees in a smallish private company avoiding raising HR issues/grievances, it’s very likely to result in your card being marked (been there, got the T shirt), however working in LA or civil service it seems to be the only way to resolve issues, and I’ve known people rise through the system despite (or perhaps because) they went to HR on issues every five minutes,

As an aside, does she have business insurance for travel to these meetings she’s going to?

Yes.

Fife LA decided it would be better to relocate her “fixed” office to Kirkcaldy

I dont think they can do this just to avoid the rates
It has to be your genuine office – our work tried this with by making our Head office in a county we did not even work in !!
The “move” failed

a number of people have already suggested this but she just has to be without a car for a few weeks (tell then its in the garage with a busted clutch). drop her at work and see what they do.

unless her contract states she has to provide a car from work they will have to sort something out, they know they are taking the pish so as long as she is all innocence and smiles there very little they can do.

I’m sure there’s an officially-sanctioned watertight business case for the move, but the fact that absolutely nothing about her job changed as a result of the move – other than her now putting 10,000+ unpaid business miles/year on our car – does get on my tits just a little bit. She still works from the Cupar office most of the time.

Fife LA decided it would be better to relocate her “fixed” office to Kirkcaldy

I don’t know if it’s different in Scotlandshire, but here your “main place of work” has to be the one you spend most time at. Perhaps ironically, it’s to stop the opposite problem; claiming you work round the corner (or better yet, a ‘home worker’) and then claiming back travel expenses to the other end of the country every day.

Yes.

Who’s paying for that, then?

Guess who gets mileage next year and one nominated ‘base’? 😀

Asking a couple of well researched questions works wonders…

Well done that man!

Would they be questions that answering properly might have left someone else exposed further down the line perchance? 😈

I was gonna say “Eh?”

I am a teacher and I work for Clacks. My current role involves off site meetings at least weekly. I can claim all my mileage. I plan which days I ride to work around which days I need the car for meetings across Stirling and Clacks. I’m glad your wife is sorted out.

Now comes the back dated claim for previous mileage… Worth a shot surely???

Next year? We are in June.

Academic year starts in august

@hora – last week of term here. 8)