Cycle2Work avaiable in your organisation?

doyler78

As we get lots of people on here looking recommendations for spending their £1000 limit on Cycle2Work I was just interested in how many of us actually have access to this through our organisations.

This is about whether the option is available not about whether you think the scheme is worthwhile or not or whether you would use it or not.

I'll start of with mine and its a yes (eventually got there).

alfablue

Yes at my Uni, and having just got my new Planet-X SL Pro Carbon Dura Ace ( 8) ) on the scheme, I have found out that I am allowed to have 2 bikes! I don't understand why, but it's true - OMG, it would be rude not to, wouldn't it? ...now do I want a tourer or a folder...ummm.

beancounter

Yes - I introduced it!

bc

ride_whenever

you've just reminded me, we have it now.... Hmmmmm, i could use another bike.

ride_whenever

the rogues, it isn't available to graduate students...

ExeterSimon

Don't get me started on this....I'm battling with my company (7000+ UK employees) to get this introduced.

They won't because they've been told that the fair market value should be 40% and not 5%.

I know it's rubbish, HMRC know it's rubbish...even CycleScheme know it's rubbish. But will they budge? Will they hell.

Slow Downcp

Yep - and the scheme is self administered by the company so employees can buy what bike they want from anywhere they want (with the added bonus that I control it ). We also have a consumer credit licence, so no £1,000 limit - I set it at £3k. 8)

Stewie Griffin

We have it, Halfords only (not the end of the World I know). What does annoy me is that it started on 22nd September and expires on 24th October. Is it only being open for one month the norm in everyone elses experience?

alfablue

Stewie Griffin wrote:

We have it, Halfords only (not the end of the World I know). What does annoy me is that it started on 22nd September and expires on 24th October. Is it only being open for one month the norm in everyone elses experience?

Quite a lot seem to do this, it is open ended at my place, about 130 bikes already purchased, and they are quite proud of it in terms of their green transport credentials. Doing it for one month seems a bit half-hearted, if they really meant to encourage cycling they wouldn't impose limits like this.

It is quite weird to think my employer currently owns a fleet of 130+ bikes

Stewie Griffin

Very half hearted indeed, its a decision about my next bike for Christs sake and I will not be rushed on such things .

hisoka

We have it and it is a short time period open too, but the company has at least gone from only Halfords to Cyclescheme now so a lot more range of places can be used.

FSR_XC

Only as I set it up.

duckson

Supposed to be with my company this side of xmas.....i wont say who but its a large global company with a couple of major sites around Preston.

Big Red S

Nope.

There is/was talk of introducing it, but it keeps falling over.

idaviesmoore

What about 'I'm self employed-Yes' option?

kuddly

My company done it two years ago with Wheelies just for a month. They're apparently doing it again in November hopefully with a few more choices of shops and more money to spend

fuzzynavel

Large multinational 100,000+ worldwide employees....15k UK employees...no frickin cycle scheme!

doyler78

idaviesmoore wrote:

What about 'I'm self employed-Yes' option?

:oops: :oops: I thought self employed people weren't able to make use of this scheme. Take it that is wrong?

littleandy0410

Nope - not available for me - I'm in the RAF, and the MoD don't run it for the Armed Forces. There is a government petition to ask for it though: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/militarycycle/

PLEASE sign it!

doyler78

littleandy0410 wrote:

Nope - not available for me - I'm in the RAF, and the MoD don't run it for the Armed Forces. There is a government petition to ask for it though: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/militarycycle/

PLEASE sign it!

That's disgusting however typical of government agencies. They are good at telling us all what we should be doing but god forbid they actually do anything themselves within their own organisations.

It took me 5 years to get my Trust to introduce Cycle to Work and you would have thought an organisation which is supposed to be dedicated to good health would be chomping at the bit to be part of such a scheme.

We are in a fortunate position in Northern Ireland in comparison to the rest of you in the UK in that we are allowed reclaim VAT which means that we get the full benefit of the scheme which unfortunately is denied to the rest of you public sector workers over in Britain.

Jay dubbleU

We did have it - linked to Halfords but it finished on 19th Sept - I'd already got my order in but its been over a month and still no bike :x

Big Red S

doyler78 wrote:

It took me 5 years to get my Trust to introduce Cycle to Work and you would have thought an organisation which is supposed to be dedicated to good health would be chomping at the bit to be part of such a scheme.

As I understand it, it took the Inland Revenue, the originators of the scheme, over two years to implement it.

Leedsblue

120,000 UK staff but Personnel say it is too costly to implement

cyclingwombat

No cycle2work for me. After asking my employer to do it i was told "why would we bother with that, we're not going to get anything out of it...." tosspots!

doyler78

cyclingwombat wrote:

No cycle2work for me. After asking my employer to do it i was told "why would we bother with that, we're not going to get anything out of it...." tosspots!

Well actually they do. They save the Employers part of their National Insurance Contributions of all their employees in the scheme

Never mind all the real benefits of having a healthier workforce, helping to reduce their carbon footprint and providing their employees with an extra benefit which costs them nothing. Short sighted or what but typical though it seems the tide has changed a lot in the last year so hopefully peer pressure may force them down this road eventually.

marcelino

I work for an NHS Trust and they used to do it (with Boost) and had such a bad time with that provider that they will no longer entertain even thinking about starting a new one.

Really made me angry that they feel this way.

davelakers

duckson wrote:

Supposed to be with my company this side of xmas.....i wont say who but its a large global company with a couple of major sites around Preston.

That "large global company" has been promising this for a couple of years. Luckily the contractor I work for at this "large global company" introduced it 3 years ago.

duckson

davelakers wrote:

duckson wrote:

Supposed to be with my company this side of xmas.....i wont say who but its a large global company with a couple of major sites around Preston.

That "large global company" has been promising this for a couple of years. Luckily the contractor I work for at this "large global company" introduced it 3 years ago.

I've been in contact with a few of the organisers and its mostly been agreed with various departments...so seems to be pukka this time!

FSR_XC

I can see the argument for it being too costly for a large organisation.

If you employ (eg) 1000 people and 500 decide to take up the scheme, it could be that the company end up paying out (bear with me here - say £500/person) £250,000.

That's quite a lot to fork out interest free. Yep you'll be paying it back, but it will be over a year.

In this situation, maybe it would be better if they said a max of 20 people a month could take up the scheme.

This is only an educated guess, but let's face it:

75% of those getting a bike on the scheme are doing it to get a good road / mtb for the weekends, not for commuting. 90% of those commuting, would have done anyway - with or without the scheme. If everyone taking up the scheme took their bike to work one day, your employers wouldn't be able to accomodate them. If the scheme stated the bike must be a commuter style machine, at least 50% of us wouldn't have used the scheme.

btw, I would like to add that I bought a road bike on the scheme and commute 3 days per week, 10.5 miles each way.

doyler78

FSR_XC wrote:

I can see the argument for it being too costly for a large organisation.

If you employ (eg) 1000 people and 500 decide to take up the scheme, it could be that the company end up paying out (bear with me here - say £500/person) £250,000.

That's quite a lot to fork out interest free. Yep you'll be paying it back, but it will be over a year.

In this situation, maybe it would be better if they said a max of 20 people a month could take up the scheme.

This is only an educated guess, but let's face it:

75% of those getting a bike on the scheme are doing it to get a good road / mtb for the weekends, not for commuting. 90% of those commuting, would have done anyway - with or without the scheme. If everyone taking up the scheme took their bike to work one day, your employers wouldn't be able to accomodate them. If the scheme stated the bike must be a commuter style machine, at least 50% of us wouldn't have used the scheme.

btw, I would like to add that I bought a road bike on the scheme and commute 3 days per week, 10.5 miles each way.

I think that this is typically the view that we have of this scheme however if an organisation can encourage an extra 10% of its staff to cycle to work rather than use their car or even taking the bus then they are going to see that on their bottom lines as healthier staff are well known to be more less likely to be off sick and are more motivated and alert during the working day. Those are major benefits for any organisation.

I think however the greater benefit is that if an organisation is able to see the benefits of healthier staff, and not only be told about it, then that will lead to a culture change within organisation and that will benefit everyone.

As to the arugment about accommodating cyclists well that may be a short term problem as it is relatively cheap and easy to convert existing car parking to cycle parking and because bike spaces take up much less room than cars these freed spaces can accommodate more cyclists and thus is more space saving to the organisation. In the long run that has benefits to their bottom line also.

£250,000 is a huge amount of money however these things are realtive and in a large manufacturing company that could easily be just one piece of equipment.

alfablue

FSR_XC wrote:

I can see the argument for it being too costly for a large organisation.

If you employ (eg) 1000 people and 500 decide to take up the scheme, it could be that the company end up paying out (bear with me here - say £500/person) £250,000.

That's quite a lot to fork out interest free. Yep you'll be paying it back, but it will be over a year.

When the employee takes over ownership of the bike they make a final payment, typically 5%, so £50 on a £1000 bike. This is like they were getting interest on the "loan". Add to this they save employers NI contributions, which can be up to 12.8%. Really it should cost them little or nothing, and with economies of scale their costs will be minimal and they should be in profit.