So, would appreciate some input from the collective brains of STW.

I work at a University as a lecturer but my research group and others in my Division (11 lecturers and their groups) are based at a research instituute 4 miles outside of town. As we gear up for the next academic year the policy on parking has changed.

Historically, we were each issued with a permit valid 9-5 mon-fri and use was logged,rather than having to pay for an annual permit like other staff whose main place of work was main campus. This was because our main site of work is the institute not main campus and we would only be visiting for as long as it took to deliver a lecture. Using public transport is out due to timetables (took me 4h round trip for a 1h lecture last time I tried), similarly I could ride but it still takes 2h round trip and doesn’t leave me in an appropriate state to deliver a lecture, and others in my division are not equipeped or physically able to do so.

Now, with the advent of remote working, the parking policy has changed. We are now expected to purchase a permit (£30) that allows for PAYG parking (£2.40/hour up to 4h) because we are classed as remote workers.

Now, this boils my piss, it isn’t even about the price, which I calculate will cost me in excess of £250 a year, but more about the principle. I’m not a remote worker, I’m working from my normal/main place of work and will have to travel in to deliver lectures. Now the University expect me to pay personally to deliver a lecture, having had to travel away from my main place of work, to fulfil the Universities obligations to students. I don’t travel there directly from home so it isn’t a ccommunte, and still isn’t my main place of work even on days when I have teaching.

Under the University rules on traveling for work I am entitled to claim back all expenses incurred but there is no budget to claim against in this circumstance. I have asked if we can pay for a single permit that covers the division teaching staff and can be taken and used when required for each lecture but this has been snubbed. Am I being unreasonable in asking for some kind of discretion to be taken into account here given our circumstances?

Does your car insurance even cover you for that journey? It’s outside the standard SDP of a non-business policy.

Maybe deliver the lecture remotely then.

You sound perfectly reasonable to me, why should you pay to travel to a location which isn’t your normal place of work

Most people pay to use public car parks when working in the city, so I’m not sure it can be described as unreasonable. When I last worked in the city annual parking costs were circa £1500.

The fact there’s no reasonable alternative is something else though. Sounds like it might be worth raising the issue of public transport, and as a major institution maybe they’ll have some influence on local policy?

If it’s not your normal place of work I would imagine you’re eligible to claim costs on expenses.

@onzadog I have business travel on my insurance. I checked for exactly this reason.

@butcher if it was my normal place of work I’d say OK but as it is travel for business, away from my normal place of work, during the working day to do work related things I think that it is different. Influence on travel policy would be nice, unfortunately travel within the city has improved but we are in a separate administartive district so out transport links have been reduced oer the same period. The two districts don’t seem to want to coordinate travel plans.

I’m in two minds about this. On one hand it’s a bit shitty of them to suddenly change the policy but on the other hand nobody is forcing you to drive a car into work and most places you’d have to pay to park outside your office anyway. The fact that you can’t use public transport due to how long it takes isn’t really their issue either.

I’d be frustrated as well.

Edit: just noticed this is not your main place of work. What does your contract say about where you might be expected to work as they usually state something about it.

Have you received and accepted a new contract stating you are a remote worker? If not does your contract make any statements about parking?

IANAL or an employment expert but I always go back to what I signed up to.

What does your union say?

Could you claim a taxi on expenses, that would no doubt be a diferent budget? Does your contract mean you have to have a car and use it for work? More questions than answers, and where’s TJ when you need him?

An electric Brompton soulnd like the perfect solution as usual.

Just use the public transport – you’re on company time.

What does your contract say about working away from main site? Surely you can claim expenses – so put the parking through your expenses to the Uni?

Does the uni have bikes or cars you can borrow for the purposes of work travel?

If it’s not your normal place of work I would imagine you’re eligible to claim costs on expenses.

This. I’d be claiming mileage and the permit cost in my place of work. (and potentially time to travel too if I was really narked)

What does your union say?

^^This^^

If you spend less than 40% of your time there it is not your normal place of work and you can claim expenses for journeys to that.
Note that the 40% rule means you can have two places of work, does this apply to you? If so, just two commutes and no costs can claimed, if less than 40% pip it through your expenses and see what happens

I rather suspect nobody has thought about you. Get everyone in your team to overwhelm the parking office with queries.

I work for an out of town university and they charge staff £224 a year to park a car.

Try working for the NHS, two year waiting list for a parking space that isn’t guaranteed & you get charged for it even if you can’t park if you are “lucky” enough to get a permit.

Under the University rules on traveling for work I am entitled to claim back all expenses incurred but there is no budget to claim against in this circumstance.

The bit highlighted in bold sounds like a problem for someone else. If there is a policy and you fall within it, it’s the university management’s task to find where the money comes from.

From what I know of multi-centre sites a pool car would be the normal way of providing this sort of thing with a special parking permit / exemption. Be careful what you ask for though as they can be a PITA: has to be collected on the day, returned at a specific time, signed in/out, damage/cleaning/paperwork dealt with etc, usually a basic fiesta or worse… booked weeks in advance,

Park somewhere free nearby that’s a half hour pedal? bound to be somewhere, becomes a win win for you with the extra exercise and money saved.

Park somewhere free nearby that’s a half hour pedal? bound to be somewhere, becomes a win win for you with the extra exercise and money saved.

This. 🙂

Try working for the NHS, two year waiting list for a parking space that isn’t guaranteed & you get charged for it even if you can’t park if you are “lucky” enough to get a permit.

Pah, lightweight. 14 year wait for a pass at my local office!

I think you’re being totally reasonable. The job I’ve got now, and the last 3 before all had similar situations with a ‘main place of work’ and then a secondary, occasional visit, satellite, type of place.
That’s 4 independent employers, and none would ever ask me to pay the cost of travel between sites, one even had a pool of electric cars to use for the 16 mile round trip to the other site, even if you had your own car with you.
It’s just normal, shouldn’t be your problem.

Unless they also pay and for your car or stipulate you must have a car in contract terms ?

” Sorry I don’t have a car to facilitate company business
”

My work had a moan about my Car not fitting company image.

I pointed out the company don’t pay for my car or the use of (no car allowance )

Thus it’s that or I don’t have a car.

Company now pays for a taxi for me across town and back which is win win as when we go back to the office i no longer have to drive to office on days I have meetings at clients and I don’t have to try and find a parking space either

Assume you have raised it with your line manager or the course convener and made it clear that none of you can deliver teaching at that site until it is resolved….

Cycle to the venue…if anyone asks why you are gone for 5 hours (does it really take 2 hours to ride 4 miles or are you riding from home and that is considerably further away?), Explain there is no car parking facilities for you at the place you are visiting and the office won’t repay the expense as they haven’t provided suitable parking, so you bike as it is more convenient for you as no parking issues or costs.

Suspect that’ll go down like a lead balloon but will also hopefully get a conversation going to get a workable solution for both work and workers.

Am I being unreasonable in asking for some kind of discretion to be taken into account here given our circumstances?

Nope. You are perfectly right in asking … but but … you are Not a bureaucrat aren’t you.

Many of me mates work as academics at various levels and they feel the same as you. They have to pay nearly £2k (may be more now) for a year parking and that’s no guarantee of a parking space i.e. go to the place of work and yes, they need to give lectures, research etc …

You see you have forgotten about the green agenda, you are Not encourage to drive at all. Better still if you can walk to work.

You see you work for a system and nothing else. You are processed every day by the system when you go to work and they want to squeeze every penny they pay you. If you want to drive then you just give them an excellent excuse to squeeze back the pennies they pay you.

You cannot change the system as the system is driven by some obscure reasons …

Once I asked my mates the question “Who own the Univeristy?” but surprisingly nobody could answer. Do you know who own your University? They don’t and some of them have even retired and had no clue who actually own the University? hmmm … must be some shadowy figures …

Thanks all, have been manically busy but will try to have a read of the comments!

Cheers,

S

Is the travel time before and after the lecture part of your working day?

If they are presenting you with the options of travel between your normal place of work and the lecture theatre by a means that is free for you but time heavy for them or less costly in man hours for them with you paying them to park you car to save them man hours I think I would be presenting them with the option of either revising the parking costs for staff in your position or you’ll be commuting in the most cost efficient way.

Chewkw, even by your standards, that’s some fantastical mumbo jumbo, bravo sir!.

I think there is (might be) two things here. You say your parking arrangements have changed “because we are classed as remote workers” but is this actually a change in your contract or just something an admin person said in relation to car parking? If a change to your contract you need to raise this formally with HR for everyone at your Institute (Union should be helpful here), because quite obviously with the exception that the pandemic has changed working arrangements temporarily across the whole University, your main place of work contractually remains the Institute 4 miles away from the main campus.

So then the second issue is simply a change to your contractual / historic agreement between Institute workers who have to visit campus to deliver work that the University is requesting from you. As you see it (correctly) nothing has changed in the working arrangements, so again I would consider getting the whole Institute to back a letter to HR / finance to explain there has been no material change to your working conditions and you collectively expect the University to provide transport between sites, either by reimbursing a taxi or providing a permit as historically existed. For example my University work contract states “A member of staff’s normal place of work will be such sites of the University and associated NHS Trusts as are requested, but the University reserves the right to require staff to work temporarily or permanently at such other place of work or location as the University may reasonably require” and “The University shall reimburse staff for all expenses wholly and necessarily incurred by them in the proper performance of their duties, subject to their compliance with any policy or procedure in relation to expenses that the University may issue from time to time and their production of such evidence as to expenses as the University may require.” What pot of money those expenses come out of is a question for your Head of Department or Faculty. Not your problem.

+1 poly

Chewkw, even by your standards, that’s some fantastical mumbo jumbo, bravo sir!.

Me mates are Lecturers/Snr Lecturers/Profs/ (some recently retired) even one is a Pro-VC (how on earth he got that far I don’t know) and that’s what they told me.

They (the system) want people to work but penalise them for driving to work. Great innit!

Oh ya … do you know who own the Universities?

@konagirl … Crikey all those for parking? It should be included in the contract in the first place? Yes?

Now, with the advent of remote working, the parking policy has changed. We are now expected to purchase a permit (£30) that allows for PAYG parking (£2.40/hour up to 4h) because we are classed as remote workers.

Surely if you’re a remote worker, and you’re required to travel, you should be reimbursed travel expenses?

In my last work there was some clarification from HMRC about regularly travelling to different site to work. IIRC if you have a work base eg head office and you go out to clients and customers from that base you can claim mileage etc but that’s only if it’s different people and sites and nothing regular.
If it’s the same 1 or 2 sites and you go there every week then you may not be able to claim. We had 4 offices in Yorkshire and I worked at Leeds. I only occasionally went to other offices so I could claim then, plus when I went to customers sites. Area managers, and managers whose teams were split between sites and they split their time between sites I think couldn’t claim mileage as it was classed as split base sites. Which sucked as the sites were in Leeds, Rotherham, York and Hull.

I am pretty sure this was a HMRC thing and not limited to my work but could your issue be connected to it?

EDIT: Found it – have a look here https://taxaid.org.uk/guides/information/issues-for-employees/employee-expenses/travel-costs

+ 1 poly

Whether there’s a budget is their problem. If it’s in your contract that you can claim, do so. If they don’t pay, that’s a different problem, but if you don’t claim they are successfully breaching your contract.

What HRMC say is only to do with whether you might be taxed on your expenses, not whether you can claim them, but if you’re travelling somewhere during the working day, having already travelled from home to your normal place of work, I don’t think your expenses are taxable.

Oh ya … do you know who own the Universities?

Most are charities, governed by a board of trustees.

https://www.oscr.org.uk/about-charities/search-the-register/register-search/

And throw ‘University’ into the search bar for our Scottish ones.

I’m surprised you didn’t know that.

I’m surprised you didn’t know that.

Who are those trustees and charities exactly?

Who appointed those trustees and charities?

Who appoint those people who select the trustees and charities?

Or is it a case of you scratch my back I scratch yours?

Where does the buck stops?

What HRMC say is only to do with whether you might be taxed on your expenses, not whether you can claim them, but if you’re travelling somewhere during the working day, having already travelled from home to your normal place of work, I don’t think your expenses are taxable.

If you read the link it does say if you travel from or to home from that other permanent base you can’t claim mileage expenses. So the only expense would be between sites as the travel home is classified as the commute.

Not sure how it works with the parking charges though!

If you read the link it does say if you travel from or to home from that other permanent base you can’t claim mileage expenses. So the only expense would be between sites as the travel home is classified as the commute.

Yes, I did read the link. The OP is not asking about travelling from home, but travelling from normal place of work to non-normal place of work, hence why I think it’s non-taxable expense.