[BBC News] Staff dispute on jail travel pay

[WTF]

what doesn't get factored in is car sharing, even if only 2 people share on a rota basis they are getting a 50% of their expenses paid for not using their car. if 4 people do it then the 'profit' goes up. it is a 'perk' of the situation. they could even use a mini bus and make lots.

[ai_Droid]

40p per mile is a standard recommended rate for travel reimbursement. People who know a lot more about these things than you do came up with the figure. Just because you don't understand this doesn't make it an extravagant rate.

 

Standard rate for travel for business purposes, not travel to and from the place of business.

[Miss Take]

what doesn't get factored in is car sharing, even if only 2 people share on a rota basis they are getting a 50% of their expenses paid for not using their car. if 4 people do it then the 'profit' goes up. it is a 'perk' of the situation. they could even use a mini bus and make lots.

 

I would presume that they would only actually pay it if you drove yourself into work... Surely?

[WTF]

what doesn't get factored in is car sharing, even if only 2 people share on a rota basis they are getting a 50% of their expenses paid for not using their car. if 4 people do it then the 'profit' goes up. it is a 'perk' of the situation. they could even use a mini bus and make lots.

 

I would presume that they would only actually pay it if you drove yourself into work... Surely?

you would hope so, but would it be done on a mileage check of said vehicles on a daily basis? if the missus uses the car does that mileage get added on? i would guess the easy system ( lets face it, an easy full of holes system will be the order of the day ) would be to work out what mileage an officer now has to do extra 'assuming' he/she drives her self to work and is not off sick, and pay them accordingly. it was stated earlier on that the payment would be a lump sum, so that effectively rules out actual mileage over the next few years being logged to pay accordingly.

[Newsbot]

Prison officers reject a government offer of compensation payments for travelling costs to the new Jurby prison.

 

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/...man/7402903.stm

[sarahc]

I've decided I don't have any sympathy any more.

[Amadeus]

40p a mile is way too much for a car. I cost at 25p a mile for a lorry accounting for depreciation, insurance and so on.

What muppet costed a BMW mini at 40p a mile?

Just to clarify - the cars in that picture don't belong to the prison - they're from the motorfest. Although I could see an idea here - give'em the travel pay they want, but they have to drive pink Minis with "Visit Jurby Prison" written on them...

[thesultanofsheight]

I've decided I don't have any sympathy any more.

 

I've decided that I agree with you.

[WilDDog]

I've decided I don't have any sympathy any more.

 

Yep if they don't want to accept a reasonable offer.

 

I wonder what else can be done? I know lets sack them all and re-advertise the positions without the petrol allowance, I'm sure the vacancies will be filled quite quickly with people willing to retrain.

[monasqueen]

The UK has "Approved Mileage Allowance Payments" which can easily be found on the internet. Current figures are, as stated elsewhere in this thread, 40p per mile - for the first 10,000 miles, and 25p per mile thereafter. There is an allowance of 5p per mile for each passenger - the one rate is not split 50/50 as suggested somewhere - the passenger gets nothing.

 

I believe the IOM Government works to a similar system.

 

I am aware that some IOM companies pay less per mile than the actual cost of petrol, even for business mileage (I worked for one of these once) and there was no reimbursement if you were "only" visiting within Douglas - could still be a few miles. Relocated people were guaranteed free parking, but that was about it.

 

In the UK, where a lot of government servants are "mobile", staff used to qualify for a residential move if they were relocated to a place further than 1 hour away by public transport. Basically, even if there was only one bus per day, and it took 55 minutes to get from a to b, then that was less than an hour, and they would not qualify! As they were in a "mobile" job, any additional costs incurred would not normally be reimbursed. Tough. I doubt if government jobs on the Island are designated "mobile", as no-one here has to travel really long distances. Many people across regularly travel more than the length of the Island to work and back each day at their own expense.

 

I can't imagine that if a bus service were provided from Douglas to Jurby Jail, it would take more than an hour to get there, so residential moves will not be an option here. (There is certainly scope for a bus service, at certain times of day, to allow the inmates' relatives and friends to visit).

 

For those employees who were taken on before the decision was made to move the prison to Jurby, I would be sympathetic towards a claim for some out of pocket expenses, for a period up to, say, 3 years, however I do not believe that this should exceed the business mileage rate applied to other government employees. If MHKs get more than that, then surely all government employees should be pushing for parity, not just a few.

 

Any such out of pocket expense allowance given will need to be taxed, as this would be for home to work mileage.

 

It would need to be rigorously checked, as I can imagine a lot of people will try to take advantage of it (such as claims by passengers, heaven forbid!). But then I think that MHKs claims should be carefully checked! I am aware that in other jurisdictions, there have been a lot of false claims - these occasionally make the news, and I cannot imagine that on this Island everyone is as pure as the driven snow, much as I would like to believe that.

[localyokel]

For those employees who were taken on before the decision was made to move the prison to Jurby, I would be sympathetic towards a claim for some out of pocket expenses, for a period up to, say, 3 years, however I do not believe that this should exceed the business mileage rate applied to other government employees. If MHKs get more than that, then surely all government employees should be pushing for parity, not just a few.

 

Yes, but the point that has been lost - because it was at the start of this thread (I checked) - is that the "deal" was 40p a mile paid as a lump sum over the first 3 years. So your not claiming for mileage done, but being compensated for the mileage they think you'll do (no need to submit claims as I read it). So not only does 40p seem a fair rate, if your then going to car pool / buy a moped / use the bus its bloody fantastic.

 

I wonder what the Civil Service Commission's joint negotiating committee will arrive at to save costs - 80p a mile plus a free car? Its only taxpayers money after all.

[Albert Tatlock]

If prison officers are fuming with the offer, let's hope they are doing it outside.

[Miss Take]

I think that rejecting the offer was a bad move. The lump sum payment was, imo, more than fair.

 

As far as the extra time taken out of the day goes, if you're going to miss your kids going to school or bed because you're earlier / later home from work then a compensation payment will not affect this. You're either willing to make the sacrifice for the job or you aren't. I realise that for someone like me that's an easier decision to make, because I can easily move jobs to try and get something closer to home - my qualification and experience are portable to virtually any business. This isn't necessarily the case for prison officers, so they may feel that they have no choice but to miss out on things (an extra hour or two a day can make a big difference) as they can't find an equivalent job closer to home. Unfortunately, when a business moves premises, there will always be people who benefit and people who lose out. The 40p per mile equivalent made it a little fairer for those losing out, but I don't think that there's much else that can be done.