Employer not interested in Cycle to Work. What S.O.B's

hotspur

Cycling to work is something that I've always been interested in doing. Alongside taking my leisure cycling more seriously and purchasing a road bike, I'm interested in at least partially cycling to work.

A little while ago I asked my employer (well the HR Department) if they take part in the scheme, thinking it was almost a certainty - so I was very surprised when they said that they do not, it's too much to take on. Now this isn't a mickey mouse company. They are one of the oldest and most famous institutions in London - frankly I'm amazed and annoyed by them not participating.

I want to cycle to work, improve my fitness and probably my wellbeing, but my employer doesn't give a to$$. Not only has this irritated me, but I feel like I will be paying over the odds for my commuter bike.

This really grinds my gears and simply there's nothing I can do but stump up the extra cash. Maybe this is something the "greener" government could look at. Why can't they make allowances to your tax band to allow you the extra $$$$, or loan you the bike and tax you the cost of the bike over X amount of months.

Eau Rouge

hotspur wrote:

Why can't they make allowances to your tax band to allow you the extra $$$$, or loan you the bike and tax you the cost of the bike over X amount of months.

Because neither of those reduces your employers NI contributions, which is what the scheme is mainly desinged to do.

Not being able to get the tax payer to pay for some of your bike hardly means your paying "over the odds" for one. Take advantage of sales and you might even pay less.

Bassjunkieuk

I understand what you mean hotspur, I enquired with my employer a while back about C2W and was informed that it wasn't deemed viable due to admin costs and a supposed lack of interest. I thought this was fair as we where a fair sized IT firm that had quite a few mobile engineers who obviously couldn't take advantage of this.

We then got brought by a much larger company and I made some more enquiries thinking it would be un-thinkable for our bigger owners to not run the scheme..........boy was I wrong! I got forwarded a link from the company intranet page that "explained" why they aren't running the scheme.

I think it's utter rubbish, if this government was serious about getting people to ride to work then they'd make the C2W scheme or something similar a centrally run scheme that anyone in work can opt into, therefore avoiding the need for each company to opt in (or out). Surely a central approach would simplify things for retailers as well as the government run scheme could in theory replace the various schemes that are run at present.

The Rookie

It costs about £10K to set up an employers salary sacrifice scheme (that can then cover C2W as well as nursery vouchers and pensions) don't blame your employer for the way the gov't has deemed the way C2W has to be set up.

Changes to tax bands would require the gov't to be stumping up the cash via HMRC not your employer (perhaps you should find out how C2W works before sounding off) something the gov't clearly isn't capable of doing in a meaningful way (at least not without getting ripped off!).

Simon

Parkey

Well it's easy to be cynical and say that the reason it's so complicated is to limit the uptake of the scheme. That it's a token effort so government can claim to have the scheme in place, but don't need to stump up much cash to support it.

My employer refuses to adopt the scheme, and technically speaking I'm in the public sector.

I seem to recall their argument was that given the cost of setting up and administering the scheme it would be cheaper for them to just buy the bikes outright, and of course they weren't willing to do either.

alfablue

There are financial benefits to employers from the scheme, including savings of the employer's NI contribution. These can offset costs partially or even entirely (£125 per £1000 bike purchase). The fact that many large employers manage to do the scheme, and some are proud to do so (mine, currently with over 200 employees in the scheme) makes one wonder about the efficiency of those that think it is too much effort!

UndercoverElephant

I think we're at the last sticking point of ours. It's the old, "OK, but what actually IS the fair market value?" chestnut. As we can't point to the tax man saying, "this is what I'll accept", it's still all up in the air.

dilemna

hotspur wrote:

Cycling to work is something that I've always been interested in doing. Alongside taking my leisure cycling more seriously and purchasing a road bike, I'm interested in at least partially cycling to work.

A little while ago I asked my employer (well the HR Department) if they take part in the scheme, thinking it was almost a certainty - so I was very surprised when they said that they do not, it's too much to take on. Now this isn't a mickey mouse company. They are one of the oldest and most famous institutions in London - frankly I'm amazed and annoyed by them not participating.

I want to cycle to work, improve my fitness and probably my wellbeing, but my employer doesn't give a to$$. Not only has this irritated me, but I feel like I will be paying over the odds for my commuter bike.

This really grinds my gears and simply there's nothing I can do but stump up the extra cash. Maybe this is something the "greener" government could look at. Why can't they make allowances to your tax band to allow you the extra $$$$, or loan you the bike and tax you the cost of the bike over X amount of months.

Me thinks the Greens could be getting your vote?

dilemna

Eau Rouge wrote:

hotspur wrote:

Why can't they make allowances to your tax band to allow you the extra $$$$, or loan you the bike and tax you the cost of the bike over X amount of months.

Because neither of those reduces your employers NI contributions, which is what the scheme is mainly desinged to do.

Not being able to get the tax payer to pay for some of your bike hardly means your paying "over the odds" for one. Take advantage of sales and you might even pay less.

That's what I did and saved £175.00 .
I bought in the sales last autumn just before bike and component prices rocketed .
And on 6 months interest free 8) .

Sewinman

The Beginner wrote:

It costs about £10K to set up an employers salary sacrifice scheme (that can then cover C2W as well as nursery vouchers and pensions) don't blame your employer for the way the gov't has deemed the way C2W has to be set up.

Changes to tax bands would require the gov't to be stumping up the cash via HMRC not your employer (perhaps you should find out how C2W works before sounding off) something the gov't clearly isn't capable of doing in a meaningful way (at least not without getting ripped off!).

Simon

I just asked our finance director and he said it costs nothing and took about an hour of his time to set up.

hotspur

Just to add, I don't completely understand the workings of this "initiative" but as bassjunkieuk said, surely a centralised scheme would be more effective. The institution I work for already has salary sacrifice schemes in place for other things (in house food for example) so I can't see the cost being an issue. I also believe that there are between 100-200 people who already cycle to work and aren't able to take advantage of this scheme.

I'm just a little pee'd off that just because someone works for a company in this scheme, which isn't run by any one workplace, that because I'm in a company that doesn't participate I'm in a way penalised or at least not able to take advantage.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on taxation, or ways to work it - but taxes can easily be changed to take more from you when necessary, so why can't you declare £1,000 towards a cycle for example and have that added to your tax bracket for a 12 month period to rekindle the cost. Why shouldn't the government "loan" us these bikes rather than our employer. I think that it makes more sense, especially when you can now be penalised and fined for not being greener. I want to be greener, but will be penalised to do so - or at least that is how it feels to me.

fidbod

hotspur wrote:

A little while ago I asked my employer (well the HR Department) if they take part in the scheme, thinking it was almost a certainty - so I was very surprised when they said that they do not, it's too much to take on. Now this isn't a mickey mouse company. They are one of the oldest and most famous institutions in London - frankly I'm amazed and annoyed by them not participating.

My company - with a grand total of 52 employees manages to run two separate C2W schemes, the one through wiggle and cyclescheme. All without intolerable admin drag. Its pretty weak that your company isn't taking part.

Admittedly getting the FD to actually process the paperwork is a bit of a pain but at least the principle to support it is there.

You should get your employer to look at Cyclescheme - its very close to the centrally run scheme for everyone to use and you can normally support your LBS.

il_principe

The Beginner wrote:

It costs about £10K to set up an employers salary sacrifice scheme (that can then cover C2W as well as nursery vouchers and pensions) don't blame your employer for the way the gov't has deemed the way C2W has to be set up.

Really? You sure about that? My employer has C2W, there are 8 of us here and £10000 is a lot to a small firm like ours. There's no way we'd have done it if it'd cost the firm money to setup. It's really not that hard to administer.

hotspur

fidbod wrote:

hotspur wrote:

A little while ago I asked my employer (well the HR Department) if they take part in the scheme, thinking it was almost a certainty - so I was very surprised when they said that they do not, it's too much to take on. Now this isn't a mickey mouse company. They are one of the oldest and most famous institutions in London - frankly I'm amazed and annoyed by them not participating.

My company - with a grand total of 52 employees manages to run two separate C2W schemes, the one through wiggle and cyclescheme. All without intolerable admin drag. Its pretty weak that your company isn't taking part.

Admittedly getting the FD to actually process the paperwork is a bit of a pain but at least the principle to support it is there.

You should get your employer to look at Cyclescheme - its very close to the centrally run scheme for everyone to use and you can normally support your LBS.

Thanks I will forward the cyclescheme info on. I think they would have a fair amount of people bite their hand off if this scheme comes in to play.

mudcovered

Really? You sure about that? My employer has C2W, there are 8 of us here and £10000 is a lot to a small firm like ours. There's no way we'd have done it if it'd cost the firm money to setup. It's really not that hard to administer.

I'd have to agree. I seriously doubt my company would have set up a C2W scheme if it cost that much. We are also setup through cyclescheme which makes it easy to get the bike you want from your LBS in most cases.

Mike

Eau Rouge

hotspur wrote:

Just to add, I don't completely understand the workings of this "initiative" but as bassjunkieuk said, surely a centralised scheme would be more effective. The institution I work for already has salary sacrifice schemes in place for other things (in house food for example) so I can't see the cost being an issue. I also believe that there are between 100-200 people who already cycle to work and aren't able to take advantage of this scheme.

I like big governemnts for a lot of things, but running the cycle to work scheme isn't one of them. You know they would just take on Raleigh and Dawes as sole suppliers of the scheme, lump it with an IT ordering system that never actually works, and at the end of it, you end up with almost no saving anyway. I'll take the profit-making private company for this one.

I'm just a little pee'd off that just because someone works for a company in this scheme, which isn't run by any one workplace, that because I'm in a company that doesn't participate I'm in a way penalised or at least not able to take advantage.

I'm peed off my employer is keeping the VAT saving they make when they buy the bike.
I will pay them that VAT money again in paying back the voucher value.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on taxation, or ways to work it - but taxes can easily be changed to take more from you when necessary, so why can't you declare £1,000 towards a cycle for example and have that added to your tax bracket for a 12 month period to rekindle the cost. Why shouldn't the government "loan" us these bikes rather than our employer.

This is great for you, but does not save your employer anything as their tax obligations for employing you are based on pre-tax values. The scheme's purpose is to reduce the cost for large multinationals in employing people in the UK to encourage them to set up here, rather than in Ireland, or Poland or Hungary or India or China. Every little helps.
There is a side benefit in that LBS's have more trade on more expensive bikes, and a PR-only benefit of being seen to support a green transport method that should be completely negated by any competant journalist on the basis of the environmental cost of producing the extra CF frames the scheme encourages us to buy and shipping them half way across the world.
It's really not about getting you on a bike.

I think that it makes more sense, especially when you can now be penalised and fined for not being greener. I want to be greener, but will be penalised to do so - or at least that is how it feels to me.

"Being green" is not why most of us ride bikes. It;s a bit like running a company to employ people. A CF bike produced in Taiwan and shipped half way around the world isn't a green solution to anything.


There is a cost to setting up the scheme. 200 employees at £1000 each would be a bill for £200,000 to be paid up front. Sure, they get that back and more throughout the year, but not every company will have (or want to commit) that sort of cash flow, especially not in the current situation where credit can be hard to find.

MrChuck

hotspur wrote:

I want to cycle to work, improve my fitness and probably my wellbeing

Is this really stopping you? People did buy bikes to get to work before C2W came along, and if by 'over the odds' you mean asking price then I guess a lot of people were 'ripped off'.

Edit: how are you being penalised exactly?

Headhuunter

The Beginner wrote:

It costs about £10K to set up an employers salary sacrifice scheme (that can then cover C2W as well as nursery vouchers and pensions) don't blame your employer for the way the gov't has deemed the way C2W has to be set up.

Changes to tax bands would require the gov't to be stumping up the cash via HMRC not your employer (perhaps you should find out how C2W works before sounding off) something the gov't clearly isn't capable of doing in a meaningful way (at least not without getting ripped off!).

Simon

What?! I'm sure my company didn't pay anything like £10k to set up cyclescheme or the nursery salary sacrifice thing. I asked, they went to Cyclescheme who sent a contract thing and hey presto it was done. Simple.

biondino

Sewinman wrote:

The Beginner wrote:

It costs about £10K to set up an employers salary sacrifice scheme (that can then cover C2W as well as nursery vouchers and pensions) don't blame your employer for the way the gov't has deemed the way C2W has to be set up.

Changes to tax bands would require the gov't to be stumping up the cash via HMRC not your employer (perhaps you should find out how C2W works before sounding off) something the gov't clearly isn't capable of doing in a meaningful way (at least not without getting ripped off!).

Simon

I just asked our finance director and he said it costs nothing and took about an hour of his time to set up.

Thirded. Indeed, I requested the scheme be set up, and after reassuring our accounts guy (who had been burned by the government's similar initiative with computers), he was happy to do so. It was done directly with Wiggle (no middleman like Cyclescheme involved) and was simple, straightforward and cost only the hour or two of his time that it took.

JonS123

My firm has done it in the past (last June infact) but despite my many phone calls to h/o asking about it, I get a "watch this space"

Aidy

Quit. Work somewhere else.

tartalo

My employer, Hewlett-Packard UK, does not support the cycle2work scheme.
Many employees have requested it, but it has been refused on the grounds of the "failure" of a similar scheme for purchasing PCs. :roll:
They try to advertise green credentials however, when it really matters, they don't make the effort . :?
There are around 8.000 employees in the UK.

hotspur

MrChuck wrote:

hotspur wrote:

I want to cycle to work, improve my fitness and probably my wellbeing

Is this really stopping you? People did buy bikes to get to work before C2W came along, and if by 'over the odds' you mean asking price then I guess a lot of people were 'ripped off'.

Edit: how are you being penalised exactly?

My point is why do I have to pay asking price when others aren't, simply because in my eyes my company can't be bothered to set it up. Obviously there are thousands of people in the same shoes and I bet a lot of them feel the same way as me. Believe me as well, my company has no problems with regards to credit!

Penalised was probably the wrong word to use, just unable to take advantage of such a scheme.

It does stop me C2W to an extent, because I have an expensive MTB which I use, and am in the process of buying a new road bike to do what you do on a road bike. I live 20+ miles outside of London, and work in the City. I wouldn't cycle door to door, basically because the route wouldn't be through the nicest of areas, however I certainly could drop my car journey and purchase a C2W specific bike to cycle to a relatives house where I currently park daily. I guess in the long run, 40+ weeks of cycling rather than driving a year would save me a lot in petrol and so a C2W specific cycle would be more affordable alongside my other bikes. Still it would be nice to save that bit extra.

always_tyred

My employer doesn't do it, if that's any consolation.

Here's a question - HR don't do this, they don't do that, so what DO they do?

As far as I can tell, they generate imaginative and utterly irrelevant ways to interview people (as opposed to, say, putting them in a room for an hour with the person they'd be working for) and ensure that the best people don't get the job that they've thought up the most obscure job titles for. Is that about right?

always_tyred

tartalo wrote:

My employer, Hewlett-Packard UK, does not support the cycle2work scheme.
Many employees have requested it, but it has been refused on the grounds of the "failure" of a similar scheme for purchasing PCs. :roll:
They try to advertise green credentials however, when it really matters, they don't make the effort . :?
There are around 8.000 employees in the UK.

ITs more to do with the health benefits isn't it? Bet your employer offers BUPA instead!!

tailwindhome

Bypass HR. They're usually to$$ers.

Go to Finance or if feasible straight to the MD.

hotspur

WheezyMcChubby wrote:

Bypass HR. They're usually to$$ers.

Go to Finance or if feasible straight to the MD.

I will give it a go.

Homer J

Find a manager etc who rides

rolf_f

hotspur wrote:

It does stop me C2W to an extent, because I have an expensive MTB which I use, and am in the process of buying a new road bike to do what you do on a road bike. I live 20+ miles outside of London, and work in the City. I wouldn't cycle door to door, basically because the route wouldn't be through the nicest of areas, however I certainly could drop my car journey and purchase a C2W specific bike to cycle to a relatives house where I currently park daily. I guess in the long run, 40+ weeks of cycling rather than driving a year would save me a lot in petrol and so a C2W specific cycle would be more affordable alongside my other bikes. Still it would be nice to save that bit extra.

I hope you succeed in educating your company into setting up the scheme but, if they don't, aren't you cutting off your nose to spite your face a bit?! Surely, even without the scheme, you'll be better off financially and healthily if you buy a bike. I did get a bike on the scheme last year and have been using on the commute but, as it is an MTB, I'm hoping to retire it from the commute soon and replace it with a road bike. This will be a racer costing less than £100. You don't need an expensive bike to commute on.

hotspur

Rolf F wrote:

hotspur wrote:

It does stop me C2W to an extent, because I have an expensive MTB which I use, and am in the process of buying a new road bike to do what you do on a road bike. I live 20+ miles outside of London, and work in the City. I wouldn't cycle door to door, basically because the route wouldn't be through the nicest of areas, however I certainly could drop my car journey and purchase a C2W specific bike to cycle to a relatives house where I currently park daily. I guess in the long run, 40+ weeks of cycling rather than driving a year would save me a lot in petrol and so a C2W specific cycle would be more affordable alongside my other bikes. Still it would be nice to save that bit extra.

I hope you succeed in educating your company into setting up the scheme but, if they don't, aren't you cutting off your nose to spite your face a bit?! Surely, even without the scheme, you'll be better off financially and healthily if you buy a bike. I did get a bike on the scheme last year and have been using on the commute but, as it is an MTB, I'm hoping to retire it from the commute soon and replace it with a road bike. This will be a racer costing less than £100. You don't need an expensive bike to commute on.

I agree and will bite the bullet regardless. I'm hoping to pick up a single speed - can any one recommend models? With the C2W scheme I'd be looking at the Bianchi Pista (I think that's the name) without I guess I'll look for something cheaper.

Stuey01

The pista is a fixed wheel track bike with no brakes, so may not be suitable for commuting on. It is a thing of beauty though.

If I was in the market for a SS I'd be looking at the Genesis Flyer I reckon.