We had some confusion within the staff team whether the ‘return journey’ HTD covers is solely your ‘Home to Duty’ or if it was the round trip.
Just received my HTD but it’s noticeably lower than if it was round trip. I don’t mind necessarily, we’re volunteers at the end of the day, but due to geographical restrictions every parade night costs me around £4 in tolls alone, never mind fuel. The HTD I’ve got paid only just pays back the toll costs from the last six months, again never mind fuel!
I think you should also be able to claim the tolls back as well on the form, you may need to check with HQ Finance on the HOW but I’d advise a read of ACP 300 first.
As @themajor says, tolls should be claimable. That’s the policy above.
The personal contribution is stupid, and needs to be gone. Given how low the milage rate is, it makes it even more insulting. Add on to that how long the claims actually take and it’s even worse.
For some quick fun maths to show how silly it really is, lets look at a workable example. You live 8 miles away from the unit. So if we could claim at the ‘normal rate’ and let’s say you attend 80% of parade nights, it would be 8 miles *2 for return, *2 for twice a week, *52 for weeks per year, *.8 for the 80% attendance *.45 for the normal milage rate. Would be about £600 a year.
However as it is with us, it’s (8-3) *2 for return, *2 for twice a week, *52 for weeks per year, *.8 for the 80% attendance *.25 for our rate is about £200 a year.
The difference is staggering when you combine ‘personal contribution’ with a much lower rate too.
On the form, you put the total amount. So in my example, you’d put the full 16, and do all the math based on that. But they still then take of 6 miles per return journey at point of payment.
