Help with Setting up Cycle2Work Scheme at a College

psdrage

Dear All

I am really hoping that someone will be able to help.

I work for a Further Education College and a group of us a trying to setup a Cycle2Work Scheme. However our HR department and resistent to the scheme and at every turn throw but another excuse as to why it can not be done.

The latest is that we can not claim back the VAT and therefore is not worth doing, which is rubbish.

Does anyone have any contacts within a UK FE institute that I could speak to to get the facts and prove to our backward HR and Management Team that supporting Cycling is better than supporting the car.

Regards

A very frustrated commuter.

The Rookie

The easiest way to set up a C2W is using a dedicated scheme organiser, that way the college farms off all the work onto the scheme supplier, there are a few of them, Halfords do one (they are 'sole supplier') the other best known one is 'cyclescheme', look them up, look at what it involves and present that to your HR dep't.

Simon

scruffyduncan

I work at an FE college and experienced the same resistance. It is true that the VAT thing makes it less of an attractive scheme than if it was through a private employer, but I still found it worth it.

We got the union involved. Two of us who were keen on the scheme are UCU officers and raised awareness through the branch and brought it up at the meetings we have with management. We drew attention to the college's green policy (most will have one, not that it is actually acted on often) and made an argument based on heatlh, less lateness, setting an example to students etc. We also pointed out that the college saved more than enough money in reduced NI contributions to cover admin costs. Once in place the management were very keen to shout about the new benefit to staff and their green credentials.

In short it's a matter of getting organised and being persistant. If enough people ask about it enough times they will eventually weaken. In the current climate of pay freezes and pension slashing it may be handy stress what a cheap way this is of buying staff goodwill.