We do this - the policy is the difference between your actual journey and the journey you would have taken to your normal place of work. When I questioned it as being slightly petty and cheapskate, not to mention costing more to administer than it was worth, I was told by both my HR and finance director colleagues that it was part of our arrangement with HMRC and perfectly normal practice and indeed there is a requirement to do this otherwise there is a benefit in kind for the employee. I confess I haven't looked into it in any detail and certainly don't enforce it.
Precisely. The Independent are independent of a party or ownership. The name doesn't mean that they're exclusively centrists or neutral. But their columnists are varied, as is typical.
To be fair, our policy covers a whole bunch of things relating to travel - medical (sickness, accidents), lost luggage, various IT things, legal costs etc. The car insurance was a tiny piece of it and came as a standard with the policy. Or Avis will drop a car off at your home the night before - surprisingly few people take this up though.
Hopefully Avis don't do what Enterprise do, which is phone you up the day before and tell you they've got nobody to drop it off, so you'll have to pick it up from their branch. Historically I think the company viewed hire cars as lower risk than employees own cars, even with the latter correctly insured. I don't really know if these days such a distinction really exists.
Calder is the rent a travel expert but I'm not really a fan of his advice.
Indeed. He's more of a consumer commentator than a social one usually so this foray doesn't really seem to work for him. But at the same time it's his column not mine.
I feel that it is good to have someone like Simon Calder comment in the Independent. There should be no harm done by such 'outsiders' who keep to the facts.
indeed - well off topic so I will stop now
I’m not sure where you get that idea, he’s largely reflecting the opinions of many regular rail users & enthusiasts who aren’t staunch Trade Unionists or Brexiteers
I doubt very much that the general public would say this:
It barely makes any sense. The general public has probably not got any difficulty with the idea that going on strike is inconvenient for your employer, but it seems Mr Calder doesn't quite see it that way.
Ok at the time of posting I’d only read the section quoted by @Thirteen which I thought was the complete article, Both sides in this dispute seem to prefer mind games to facts .
They(dft etc) should allow a percentage and then becomes up to TOCs and local reps to sort out.
That’s how it works for the Civil Service (the treasury set limits on the overall percentage value of increases, but departments can allocate it around as they see fit) and it isn’t a good solution. Some departments end up paying more to some grades than others, and over the years it becomes essential to move departments to actually get more pay as the disparity can be 10-15k for the same job.
There is already a disparity in pay between drivers at tocs. So a one size fits all isn’t going to help.
The privatisation honeymoon period has long passed, An Avanti offer of say 6% no strings in the current industrial relations climate almost guarantees multiple disputes at other TOCs that don’t at least match it, so may as well do it collectively, but I totally agree ive no idea what their end game is
Regarding movement, dozens of qualified drivers have jumped ship at the toc I'm at last year.
That may well be essentially what happens, ie up the offer a bit + many posters claim the desired changes are already largely in place at their employer
More are using trainee or apprenticeship routes, but still quite a bit of qualified movement. We have quite a few leaving and we are starting quite a few too.
