Travel to work costs and temporary workplace

-PaulE-

I work for a large company in business change - every day I am travelling around the country and hot desking from different offices, at the most one day a week I travel to the main office for the odd meeting so that people don't forget who I am.
For the last year the company has paid all my train travel costs, but last week my new line manager gave me a letter to tell me that from July I must pay my costs to the main office from now on, and that I am expected to be in the main office at least twice a week.
I was shocked; firstly the cost of a season ticket is over £7,000, also I wont be able to do the job if I'm stuck at the head office twice a week.
I read online about the definition of a Temporary Work Place versus Permanent Work Place, tbh I don't quite understand the definitions but it does seem to be relevant to my case.
I have set up a meeting with my line manager to discuss this, but before I do I was hoping someone could advise or offer opinions?

xapprenticex

I cant help but that is SHOCKING, I think your manager has promised savings at your expense. Good luck.

General_Grant

If you go to the office twice a week (and have holidays) I expect that it would be cheaper to pay for individual journeys rather than a season ticket.

TBagpuss

Step one would be to look at your original contract and see what it says.

However:
It's perfectly normal to pay your own travel costs to get to work,and I think it is likely that the head office may be classed as your main / permanent place of work, so it would be reasonable for you to cover your normal travel costs to go there.

Your employer can also almost certainly chose to require you to be at the head office 2 days a week. If you feel that that will make it harder for you to do your job then I would suggest that you have that conversation separately from any discussion about travel costs - not being able to do your job effectively is something which goes against the interests of the business, you having to pay to travel to work 2 days a week isn't.

Have you looked into what costs are likely to be for 2 days a week? It may well be that a season ticket isn't cost effective unless you're there 5 days a week.

jobbingmusician

The other thing is, if you can negotiate so that you start travel to your main office after 9.30, you'd be able to get a travelcard or day return for those 2 days which would make the travel much cheaper.

(And I used to sleep on the office floor one night a week, when I worked a long way from home, to save the travel costs. Maybe you don't fancy this, or it wouldn't be allowed, but a B & B for one night a week might be cheaper than the travel, allowing you to be in the office on 2 consecutive days.)

agrinnall

One way to look at it is that until now you've received payment for travel to your main place of work approximately once a week that should be a taxable benefit so you've got away with not paying quite a lot of tax (unless of course HMRC find out, and then they may be after you for the back taxes).

Manxman_in_exile

So you work for "a large company in business change".


This sounds like a business change - what would you advise a client about how their employees might react?


Maybe it's a test to see what you do?

TELLIT01

Being responsible for paying to get to and from you 'normal place of work' is standard, and I'm surprised that your employer has been paying up to now. I would expect HMRC to consider that a benefit in kind and to apply a tax liability to it.
Unless your home is classified in your contract as your 'normal place of work', your manager is correct in their action. As for expecting you to attend the office 2 days a week, that again is up to the employer, unless there is anything to the contrary in your contract.

FBaby

You're not being hard done by now, you were getting a good deal before. The rule is that the travel costs to your main place of work are yours. Your main place of work should be what is stated in your contract.

Even if you travel elsewhere, they could choose to only pay the difference between your main place of work and the site you've got to go to.