NHS mileage allowances consultation
If you use your own car (not lease car) for NHS work then you will probably want to be involved in this consultation.
Between 16 March and 24 April 2009, NHS employers and NHS unions are consulting on NHS mileage allowances. The consultation will take place at the workplace level and responses are invited from both staff and employers in partnership. This is not a consultation on a new Agenda for Change agreement at the moment. We are sharing with the service where we have reached in discussions between employers and unions and we look forward to hearing your views through your own partnership arrangements. A letter has gone out to all NHS employers and a questionnaire has been designed to facilitate feedback.
Mileage allowance is the reimbursement you receive for using your own car for NHS business. Reimbursement is intended to reasonably reflect costs of motoring such as fuel, insurance, depreciation and breakdown cover when using a vehicle for work.
Following the negotiated 10% increase in mileage allowances in July, we agreed to look again at the Agenda for Change (AfC) arrangements for mileage reimbursement (currently found at AfC section 17 and annex L and M). Our discussions have been informed by a data search exercise through the electronic staff record covering a range of NHS organisations and we have looked (anonymously) at business miles travelled and reimbursements made to staff for using their own car for work. A helpful summary of what motoring costs mileage allowances might reimburse and how they might be calculated is covered by the Review of mileage payments consultation document (PDF 221KB) [How to access PDF files] and the NHS Staff Council PowerPoint presentation (100KB).
The consultation seeks to cover a number of issues including:
- Sharing with the service where the mileage working group has got to in its considerations.
- Seeking views on the possibility of a single mileage allowance rate or a mileage allowance rate that retained a 'lump sum payment' or any other possible model.
- To understand the views of the service on the use and retention of a Public Transport Rate.
- To check the data received through ESR against local data and experience, and determine its applicability across the service.
- Find out to what extent the 'cost of capital' should been included in the calculation of a mileage allowance.
- Determine how the Staff Council will monitor mileage allowances and the cost of motoring so that it is more sensitive to changes in the cost of motoring.
Contact RCN Senior Employment Relations, Gerry O'Dwyer if you would like more information on this. Email: gerry.o'dwyer@rcn.org.uk.