Travelling to work is 'work'

[Hope]

"Time spent travelling to and from appointments by workers without a fixed office should be regarded as working time, the European Court of Justice has ruled."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34210002

About time; a disaster; what?

Any thoughts?

[jeremyp]

"Time spent travelling to and from appointments by workers without a fixed office should be regarded as working time, the European Court of Justice has ruled."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34210002

About time; a disaster; what?

Any thoughts?

Travel time to customers beyond my normal daily commute is definitely considered work by my current employer.  But then, we do bill the customers for it.

[Hope]

Jeremy, many organisations that employ carers do not regard the time spent getting from one client to another to be payable time.  The result is that they will usually pay you towards getting to your first client, and home from your last, but nothing for the trips in between.  All three of my womenfolk have done this kind of work in the past, and they would usually have between 6 and 9 calls a day.  I know of others who have more than that.

You are fortunate because you have a 'normal daily commute', suggesting that you have a base office.  Expenses for travel away from that base office is covered by existing legislation.  What I have described above is not.

[jeremyp]

Jeremy, many organisations that employ carers do not regard the time spent getting from one client to another to be payable time.

Well, I guess my post is suggesting that they ought to, and as hours under the working time directive.

[Outrider]

Jeremy, many organisations that employ carers do not regard the time spent getting from one client to another to be payable time.  The result is that they will usually pay you towards getting to your first client, and home from your last, but nothing for the trips in between.  All three of my womenfolk have done this kind of work in the past, and they would usually have between 6 and 9 calls a day.  I know of others who have more than that.

You are fortunate because you have a 'normal daily commute', suggesting that you have a base office.  Expenses for travel away from that base office is covered by existing legislation.  What I have described above is not.

Travel between jobs is already covered -that is considered part of your working day. What this ruling covers is specifically travel from home to the first job of the working day, or travel home from the last job of the day.

Some operators have used the loop-hole to optimise the efficiency of a workers route during the day regardless of the imposition of travel on their home life. Of course, this doesn't stop people opting out of the working time directive, and places no obligation on employers to pay any more in total, only to consider these particular journeys to be part of the work.

O.

[Outrider]

I have known quite a few people not paid for travelling time.

When an elderly person needs a cleaner no time is allocated to the cleaner to travel from one person to another so each needy person loses the time out of their cleaning time.

I have also known this happen to a nurse travelling between patients bandaging wounds etc.

It seems common in certain jobs.

Sometimes because they don't allow time between calls the person paying for the cleaning service loses because the cleaner leaves early to get to the next job.

State arranged ones that you still have to pay for falls into this.

Again, this ruling doesn't actually affect that situation. Not having travel time accounted for in scheduling is an operational failing, not a legal breach - the people being disadvantaged are the people who are paying for or who are entitled to the service, not the employee. I appreciate that it will probably be frustrating for them as well, don't get me wrong, but they are paid for their time, regardless of whether they are bandaging/caring/cleaning or travelling.

O.

[Hope]

Again, this ruling doesn't actually affect that situation. Not having travel time accounted for in scheduling is an operational failing, not a legal breach - the people being disadvantaged are the people who are paying for or who are entitled to the service, not the employee. I appreciate that it will probably be frustrating for them as well, don't get me wrong, but they are paid for their time, regardless of whether they are bandaging/caring/cleaning or travelling.

O.

Hi O, you are correct here - and my original summary was wrong.  It is the initial home to client and final client to home trips that this ruling covers, not the ones in between the first and last clients.  The problem was that the reporter that I originally heard made the same mistake, hence my misunderstanding.  However, since these journeys can often take some time - I remember my elder daughter having to travel from where we live SW of Cardiff to a client on the SE of Newport, Gwent for a 9am call; it took her something over 75 mins. because of the traffic 

[ProfessorDavey]

Again, this ruling doesn't actually affect that situation. Not having travel time accounted for in scheduling is an operational failing, not a legal breach - the people being disadvantaged are the people who are paying for or who are entitled to the service, not the employee. I appreciate that it will probably be frustrating for them as well, don't get me wrong, but they are paid for their time, regardless of whether they are bandaging/caring/cleaning or travelling.

O.

Hi O, you are correct here - and my original summary was wrong.  It is the initial home to client and final client to home trips that this ruling covers, not the ones in between the first and last clients.  The problem was that the reporter that I originally heard made the same mistake, hence my misunderstanding.  However, since these journeys can often take some time - I remember my elder daughter having to travel from where we live SW of Cardiff to a client on the SE of Newport, Gwent for a 9am call; it took her something over 75 mins. because of the traffic

I think there needs to be some balance.

Most people who have a fixed work place still have some traveling time to and from work. I understand that this may be in part due to choice, but not entirely - e.g. work places in areas with little or no residential property or where property prices are restrictively expensive.

So while it is unfair to expect a person without a fixed work place to travel an excessive distance to and from first/last appointment and not have that time considered. But likewise I don't think ti fair to have their time covered from the moment they leave their home front door, which is certainly not the case for people with a fixed work place. So perhaps a good balance would be to expect travel time up to 30 minutes not to be included as work time, but once is goes over that 30 minutes then it would be.

[Andy]

I don't know if this has any impact on me or not as I am self employed with my home address as my place of work. I travel out every week and do a 130mile round trip where I can claim 25/45p a mile in expenses already, and I count the travelling as work time. I suppose it would begin to impact on me if I employed someone else?

[ProfessorDavey]

I don't know if this has any impact on me or not as I am self employed with my home address as my place of work. I travel out every week and do a 130mile round trip where I can claim 25/45p a mile in expenses already, and I count the travelling as work time. I suppose it would begin to impact on me if I employed someone else?

I guess as you are self employed how you want to arrange matters is up to you. The travel expenses bit is a different issue - we are talking about the time element not the cost element.

[Andy]

I don't know if this has any impact on me or not as I am self employed with my home address as my place of work. I travel out every week and do a 130mile round trip where I can claim 25/45p a mile in expenses already, and I count the travelling as work time. I suppose it would begin to impact on me if I employed someone else?

I guess as you are self employed how you want to arrange matters is up to you. The travel expenses bit is a different issue - we are talking about the time element not the cost element.

Thought so

[ProfessorDavey]

I don't know if this has any impact on me or not as I am self employed with my home address as my place of work. I travel out every week and do a 130mile round trip where I can claim 25/45p a mile in expenses already, and I count the travelling as work time. I suppose it would begin to impact on me if I employed someone else?

I guess as you are self employed how you want to arrange matters is up to you. The travel expenses bit is a different issue - we are talking about the time element not the cost element.

Thought so

And on the expenses issue, I guess the only reason for claiming expenses (effectively from yourself) if you are self employed is for tax reasons.

[Andy]

I don't know if this has any impact on me or not as I am self employed with my home address as my place of work. I travel out every week and do a 130mile round trip where I can claim 25/45p a mile in expenses already, and I count the travelling as work time. I suppose it would begin to impact on me if I employed someone else?

I guess as you are self employed how you want to arrange matters is up to you. The travel expenses bit is a different issue - we are talking about the time element not the cost element.

Thought so

And on the expenses issue, I guess the only reason for claiming expenses (effectively from yourself) if you are self employed is for tax reasons.

In essence, yes, but it's either put the car through the business or just claim expenses through petrol. Claiming for every mile driven is there to cover all costs that come with a car. When I was employed and had a company car, I could still claim for every mile driven that wasn't travel from home to the office. That doesn't appear to be a change, but the time taken to travel from home to work counts as working hours.

[ProfessorDavey]

I don't know if this has any impact on me or not as I am self employed with my home address as my place of work. I travel out every week and do a 130mile round trip where I can claim 25/45p a mile in expenses already, and I count the travelling as work time. I suppose it would begin to impact on me if I employed someone else?

I guess as you are self employed how you want to arrange matters is up to you. The travel expenses bit is a different issue - we are talking about the time element not the cost element.

Thought so

And on the expenses issue, I guess the only reason for claiming expenses (effectively from yourself) if you are self employed is for tax reasons.

In essence, yes, but it's either put the car through the business or just claim expenses through petrol. Claiming for every mile driven is there to cover all costs that come with a car. When I was employed and had a company car, I could still claim for every mile driven that wasn't travel from home to the office. That doesn't appear to be a change, but the time taken to travel from home to work counts as working hours.

Ok, but still slightly unclear why classifying your travel time as 'work' or not makes any difference as a self employed person. Surely you'll simply factor that in one way or another in the amount you charge your clients for what you do for them.

[Andy]

Ok, but still slightly unclear why classifying your travel time as 'work' or not makes any difference as a self employed person. Surely you'll simply factor that in one way or another in the amount you charge your clients for what you do for them.

No, it doesn't make any difference to someone like me, I was just trying to sure that up.