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20 May, 2019 11:20

i was hoping someone could help explain if our employee is entitled to travel time/vehicle for work.

He is employed as a cleaner over 5 different sites that he took on one after the other as people left. he took them on on the basis of they are individual jobs that he is paid for (2 hours at x 3 hours a x). They are all fixed jobs with set hours and set locations. if he is ever asked to work at another location it is at his discretion (sometimes sickcover) but the other jobs are set and permanent.

The issue i now have is that he is asking for a vehicle to go around these jobs as he no longer has a car, as the CAB have told him we have to pay him and give a car for him to get around all jobs. We do have mobile teams but their jobs form part of mobile contacts that have vehicle costs built in. they report to our office each morning and have daily schedules to follow. This person has his own jobs and goes straight there and back.

I am now unsure what to do as the work he does did not have this in mind when quoted and he knew he had to get there himself when he asked to take on teh extra jobs.

any help would be much appreciated.

regards

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Robey | 0 Posts

20 May, 2019 11:36

the CAB have told him we have to ... give a car for him to get around all jobs

I'd be very surprised if CAB told him that. They are usually pretty good when it comes to advising people on their rights and that's the purest level of BS.

Item 1: You are under no obligation to give him a car. If he "no longer has a car" then the obligation to find himself a method of getting to and from his places of work is his, not yours. However, he does sound like a pretty willing member of staff, so you might wish to help him out with an employee loan or similar. No obligation to do so.

However, you have sleep-walked into a pretty mess and the answers will depend a lot upon your contractual agreement with this person. It sounds like he began as a casual employee, paid only for time worked on site, doing the cleaning job for which he was contracted. If he's contracted for 2 hours of cleaning at, say, £9.00/hr, he earns £18. End of story. But he has taken on more jobs, filling gaps as they arise, until he's bobbing around all over the place doing Job X for 2 hours here and then Job Y for 3 hours over here.

From the sound of it, he has drifted out of the "casual" market of labour and into the "employee" market - and it's interesting that you call him an employee and not a worker, so I'm curious about the contract you have with him. Regardless, you are - rightly - struggling to understand how he should be employed, so let's start with the basics:

Item 2: no one gets a right to a paid commute, but if the client site isn't within "reasonable" commuting distance, he has a right to be paid for his travel time. No legal definition of "reasonable" exists.

Item 3: if he is moving between sites during a working day then this would normally be considered payable time. If his hourly rate is low enough that, including his payable travelling time, he's not earning minimum wage, you would be in breach of minimum wage regulations and liable to pay him the difference.

Item 4: If he is incurring travel expenses (mileage or public transport costs) whilst moving between client sites, you would be obliged to refund these to him.

Item 5: If he isn't travelling between sites, but simply going to one site every day, the situation is simpler, but he is still likely to be considered an employee, so is entitled to all the rights of an employee.

Item 6: The fact that he doesn't come to your office is irrelevant. Ignore.
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