Mileage scam

[The Great Dictator]

I think you forget how many people are using their own cars for your benefit, i reckon about 250 everyday. If they didn't then the authority would grind to a halt. Using taxis would be much more expensive and time consuming and earning £11 an hour is much less than a scrounger with 5 kids gets on the dole.

[The Great Dictator]

Dunno, you would have to take that up with your 3 councillors ?

[mk1]

I think you forget how many people are using their own cars for your benefit

I reckon that people are using their own cars because they
know a good thing when they see it.

earning £11 an hour is much less than a scrounger with 5 kids gets on the dole.

Scrounger with 5 kids/scrounger on 11 quid an hour.
Both the same.

[mk1]

In another authority there was a mileage dispute so the employee exercised her right to travel on a home visit by taking 2 buses each way at the cost of £4.80 and spent nearly 4[£45] hours out of the office. Had she used her car she would have been back within 1 hour, now you tell me mileage is not good value ?

I can not find any area of Hartlepool where you would need to use  2 busses to get there from the Civic Centre.
Nor can I find a  bus journey of 1 hour within Hartlepool.
To get as far as (say) Billingham would take you 30 mins max
Please explain how the scenario you used as an example would apply in Hartlepool.
I also think your example uses the time spent with the client as if it was journey time.
Have you got a breakdown where we can see journey time and time spent with the client?

[The Great Dictator]

Perseus, all authorities vary.
A mean authority would pay 45p, most cars cost 20p per mile to run.
Then you have to add on maintenance which doubles it. My daughter works for a north east authority, her car insurance doubled when she declared she was using the car for home visits with certain post codes, the authority take this into account when calculating mileage allowance. She gets nothing toward her insurance.
If no one had cars you would have to provide them at a greater cost.
The bus would be a handicap, you can't take private documents and 30 files on a bus.
If a Councillor has a meeting 30 miles away he has to be delivered there, usually by an officer.
That's why mileage mounts up.

[The Great Dictator]

MK1, if you had any common sense you would be dangerous.
If a home visitor has 5 calls to do in a day how would she get to Wynyard then Clavering then Seaton then West View then Greatham without taking 7-11 buses.
It is impossible, the buses don't cover the whole town, are you a complete numpty ?
People who earn £11 an hour are not scroungers they are workers and deserve every penny of it.
I imagine you have 7 kids and claim the usual £43,000 a year, correct ?

[rabbit]

"If a Councillor has a meeting 30 miles away he has to be delivered there, usually by an officer"

Can`t the Councillor drive himself??? If not, then does the office claim the mileage allowance?

The table given could have been made more revealing if it had included the number of council employees, and perhaps the number claiming mileage allowance.

For instance, for Hartlepool with a council staff full-time numbers of 3,500, one million pounds equates to about £290 pounds each per year, or about 600 miles driven.

However if only 250 staff are claiming mileage allowance then this becomes £4000 each, or about 8000 miles driven!

Compare this with, say, Liverpool (taken at random) where there are apparantly about 9000 council staff, getting around 1.5 million pounds car allowance.

Also there are 445,000 population in the area that the Liverpool council serves.

A ratio of 49 to 1 member of public to council employeee. 

Here it is a ratio of about 26 to 1.


Anyway, most of the cost of running a car is the standing charge which consists of depreciation, capital cost, tax. insurance etc. The running costs, i.e. petrol, tyres, service and replacements are relatively lower and less than the 45 pence per mile quoted.

In other words, employers are paying not just their staff`s motoring (running) costs but also payment towards the benefit of having a staff member who can (at the drop of a hat) use their own  vehicle in the service of the council/employer.
Here is a breakdown of costs by the AA, although it is 2 years out of date.

http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/advice/advice_rcosts_petrol_table.jsp

If mileage allowances are being abused by the employee, or the employer can find other cheaper/more efficient ways of obtaining the same service then they should do so.

[mk1]

MK1, if you had any common sense you would be dangerous.
If a home visitor has 5 calls to do in a day how would she get to Wynyard then Clavering then Seaton then West View then Greatham without taking 7-11 buses.

If I were doing it I would plan it so the visits were in order rather than your way of hopping from Seaton to West View and then back to Owton Manor.
Reason is wasted on you because you obviously have a vested interest here and will fight tooth and nail to defend your perk.

It is impossible, the buses don't cover the whole town, are you a complete numpty ?

I would say the 'numpty' is the man saying everyone on this perk is  an angel of mercy attending to the sick and dying. Some are but the majority do it because it brings them extra money and gets them some slack unsupervised time.

People who earn £11 an hour are not scroungers they are workers and deserve every penny of it.

Not so. I could give you many examples of 11 quid an hour parasites.

I imagine you have 7 kids and claim the usual £43,000 a year, correct ?

You should never post in anger as your true identity spills out.
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Oh, I almost forgot-you are wrong!

[The Great Dictator]

Rabbit, not all Councillors can drive so if an officer takes him then the officer claims the allowance for his vehicle.

[The Great Dictator]

It could be cut to 45p if the officers and councillors wanted it to be.
Other authorities that give 45p might also give other incentives eg. cheap car loans, like what Hartlepool used to do 15 years ago.
The 52p might include a contribution towards higher car insurance, i'm only guessing ?
This is something you need to take up with a councillor or the FOI dept.
I seem to remember that cars with a bigger engine get a higher rate as well.

[The Great Dictator]

Perseus, if 2 married officers claimed twice for using the same car then that is fraud. All claims have to go through a form filling exercise.

[The Great Dictator]

Ok MK1, you can explain to me.

If you had to go to Wynyard, Clavering, West View, Seaton and Greatham all in one day from the civic centre at 9am, where

would you start, what buses would you use, how much would it cost and how long will it take ?

Bearing in mind you would have to spend 30 minutes with each client and stop for lunch.

What time would you arrive back at the civic centre

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

The 52p might include a contribution towards higher car insurance, i'm only guessing ?

Anyone who uses their car for business usage does need to include this (usually at extra cost) in their insurance, as it's not part of the usual 'social, domestic and pleasure' categories.  I once had it added to my insurance for a one off journey to take a non-driver colleague to a meeting in Manchester (and no, before anyone asks, I have never worked for HBC)!  Can't remember exactly how much it was, but it was so small that I didn't bother to remove it on renewal until I changed cars, so don't think that it needs to be a major factor in determining mileage allowances.

[mk1]

Ok MK1, you can explain to me.

If you had to go to Wynyard, Clavering, West View, Seaton and Greatham all in one day from the civic centre at 9am, where

would you start, what buses would you use, how much would it cost and how long will it take ?

Bearing in mind you would have to spend 30 minutes with each client and stop for lunch.

What time would you arrive back at the civic centre

Reductio ad absurdum.

Cars may be needed for those case but how many who claim the mileage work in this area?

You always run off at a tangent and refuse to address the salient point.
Here it is in plain language..

Why is the rate in Hartlepool above the reccomended rate

Remember the clowns who set this high rate are the same fat lazy buggers who hired a Luxury coach to take them 200 yards from the Civic to the opening of  Tumbleweed Junction.

[no6bus]

Ok MK1, you can explain to me.

If you had to go to Wynyard, Clavering, West View, Seaton and Greatham all in one day from the civic centre at 9am, where

would you start, what buses would you use, how much would it cost and how long will it take ?

Bearing in mind you would have to spend 30 minutes with each client and stop for lunch.

What time would you arrive back at the civic centre

oooh my specialist subject. now i am basing this on wynyard being wynyard road and not wynyard village.
from the heart foundation shop opp grand hotel get the service 7 pay £3.20 for a dayrider ticket from the driver leaves there at 9:15 arriving at wynyard road shops at 9:30 spend your 30 mins with the client and get a service 6 from catcote road/wynyard road junction at 10:22 allowing for walking time arrive clavering at 10:53 30 miins with client leave clavering 11:38 service 6 again and travel to brus shops arriving 11:46 leave brus at 12:36 and arrive at carlton bingo (for civic)  12:44 then have lunch say 13:30 leave civic and get 13:33 service 1 from heart foundation shop again arrive elizabeth way shops at 13:48 leave elizabeth way shops at 14:38 arriving at st aidans at 14:53 and cross over to bus stop at cornwall street near lotus express and catch service 36 arriving greatham 15:20 then 30 mins with client catching 36 back to yates wine bar at approx 16:10 arriving 16:40 now distance town to wynyard 3.5 wynyard to clavering 5.0 clavering to west view 1.5 west view to town 2.0 town to seaton 3 seaton to greatham 4 then greatham to civic 5 total approx 24 miles at 52p p m say £12.50 instead of £3.20 and thats why they use the car. mileages are approximate and give a idea of mileage and the practicality of bus travel in hartlepool.
if this was to be repeated 4 days a week a weekly megarider ticket at £10 would give a saving of approx £40 per week using bus v car