Pay and Conditions

[chiz]

Well it may sound unfair but if it's the job I am thinking of then it's the Revenue that are setting the rules.

It all depends on whether its the site or the unit offices are your base for contract purposes.....

Hi Kevin, in my understanding that is correct, in that if you are employed for a specific site then that is your place of employment, and any accomodation/subs etc will therefore be a taxeable perk. However if you remember when we were working up in Cumbria (our place of work as it was a fixed contract) we were given travel up at the start and finish of the site, plus daily travel to and from site. We were also given accomodation which was mostly paid for by our employer, although we paid a very small amount a week towards the cost. This had all been sorted with HMRC.
So it is clearly possible to provide these 'perks', albeit at a small cost to the employee, in compliance with the HMRC rules.

Both units on the site in question appear to have hired staff specifically for that site, both have their main offices a long way from the site (several counties away). One unit actually has a local office in the county of the site though, so surely that should be the 'base' for the site? and therefore travel to and from should be given from that office as hapens from their home base? One question I would ask is if a site is going to be stated as the place of employment, then are all facilities available there that would be available at head office? Are staff at that site treated the same as staff based at the head office?

An underlying issue is that accomodation, subs and travel have been an accepted part of the archaeologist's package for at least the last twenty years, and the sudden removal of these aspects of our overall package by certain employers appears to be a major variation to an accepted practice. Should this not therefore be recompensed in the paid aspects of the package (in the same way as if a unit stopped offering pension subs or sick pay as per IfA rules?).