Agenda item

A UNISON Representative, introduced the report and expanded on the issues relating to the changes to Vehicle use and the travel and subsistence scheme at the Authority

UNISON requested further clarification of the report presented at item 6 of the agenda. Although the scheme was authority wide it had impacted mostly on officers in the Ranger Service as they had the use of vehicles for private travel to and from home and this provision had been removed with no compensation.

UNISON felt there had been unclear advice regarding what affected individuals could do if they wished to pay tax due if they retained a vehicle. 

UNISON also noted that the option to keep the use of the vehicle and pay the tax had not been discussed at the Resource Management Meeting during the discussion of the changes to the scheme.

UNISON requested that Members note that UNISON had expressed concerns regarding the impact on staff morale of the handling of the introduction of the new scheme.

The Director of Corporate Strategy and Development clarified the reasons for implementation of the new scheme and confirmed that consideration had been given to the consultation responses of Staff Committee and UNISON. Those vehicles that had previously been kept at home were now part of the pool vehicle fleet and were now available to be used by other staff.  Advice from a tax consultant was that the personal tax implications would be great and the impact of paying it would outweigh any benefits to the individual.

Members requested to know the number of officers directly affected by the change not to allow dedicated Authority vehicles to be used for private commuting to work, the Director confirmed that it was in the low teens.

Members raised concerns regarding the impact of the requirement for staff to travel from home before visiting sites on the operation of the Ranger Service.  The Director confirmed that vehicles were now located as close as possible to the area of work to reduce travel time and to comply with HMRC regulations. A check on operational issues would be carried out after the new scheme has been in effect for a year. The Authority had previously had a specific dispensation from HRMC which had been withdrawn and comparisons with other authorities was not possible. The Director clarified that the Authority is not designated a ‘blue light’ service for the HMRC purposes.

The Head of Human Resources stated that the new scheme equalised treatment and it now aligned fairly all staff across the Authority.

UNISON requested that members noted their concern regarding the communication of the change in policy and requested that communication was across the authority rather than through UNISON.  The Director confirmed that UNISON and Staff Committee had received the same communication and he expressed the concern that communicating to all staff the arrangements that only a small number of officers had been receiving would impact negatively on staff morale overall.

It was noted that several employees had asked what would be the potential personal tax liability of continuing to use an Authority vehicle for private commuting to work. The initial response (provided in the Frequently Asked Questions) was that “Due to the scale of the potential charge to the individual member of staff and the complexity of record keeping, calculating and recovering the costs due to the Authority this is not considered a practical option” However, following the issue being raised during the consultation exercise, UNISON and Staff Committee representatives were informed that “If an individual employee would like an indication of potential tax liability of continuing to use an assigned vehicle for solely commuting to work purposes please could they contact Philip Naylor”. An individual who was previously assigned a dedicated vehicle had recently made a request for an indication of the potential costs of using the vehicle for personal community to work. If they wished to pursue the request, once they knew the costs, their request would be assessed in light of any operational considerations.

The Director of Corporate Strategy and Development would request impact reports from Heads of Service after the year-end and report back to Local Joint Committee in June 2019.

The meeting closed at 10.35 due to no longer being quorate as Cllr Kath Potter and Cllr Caroline Howe left the meeting.