Working time - travelling as part of your job.

[birdie1971]

My wife works as a contract's monitoring inspector for a large company. One week in four, she travels from home to the office and spends her working week carrying out duties in the office. The journey time from our front door to the office takes about 15 minutes. The other three weeks, she does not go to the office at all and spends her days travelling to different locations in the Greater Manchester area in order to carry out her job. The journey time from our front door to a site can take anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour. If traffic is heavy, his journey time can take even longer.

Recently, her employers have said that all the time spent travelling from home to her first site must be done in her own time, ie. her working day does not start until she arrives at her first site. Similarly, they have stated that her working day finishes as soon as she leaves her last site, regardless of how far away from home that happens to be.

Can her employers do this? I've been looking at the Working Time Regulations [WTR] and it's unclear as to whether this is legal. The WTR say that, “... working time includes working lunches and time spent travelling as part of a job. It would not, however, include routine travel between home and work."

Any advice would be gratefully received.

[birdie1971]

^^^ “If traffic is heavy, THIS journey time can take even longer.”

She was female the last time I looked...

[squarebear]

I would think this was standard practice and it's hardly the employer's fault if she lives miles away.

[birdie1971]

Hi Squarebear.

She lives close to some sites and far away from others. The point being that her job specifically dictates that she must visit different sites; some of which are an hour's drive away, some of which are only fifteen minutes away.

As I stated above, the WTR state that, “... working time includes... time spent travelling as part of a job.”. Surely she's travelling to these sites as part of her job and as such her working day should start once she is on the road?

[Count-A-Strong]

Maybe there are redundancies in the pipeline and th company are testing employees reactions to find the most dedicated ones.

[boxtops]

I think this is a difficult one, and the critical part is "routine travel between home and BASE" for us. I'm in a similar situation - my office is 15 minutes away,but sometimes I have to travel three hours to get to meetings at our head office - three there, three back. I count all that as my working day. If we are using cars for travel then the rule is that you can only claim over and above what you would usually use to get to your normal base (as nobody gets paid for the journey to work each day) - I treat time the same as mileage. Six hours travel + 2 hours meeting is my working day.

[birdie1971]

I've just discovered that according to HM Revenue and Customs, you can claim travelling expenses from your home to a temporary place of work. A temporary place of work is defined as one which you spend less than 40% of your time. My wife definitely spends less that 40% of her time at each individual site.

By inference, if you can claim travelling expenses then surely you are deemed be at work?

[bednobs]

i think it will depend on her contract. In my contract it staes that my workplace is my office but that my workplace can be deemed as anywhere alse the employer fancies (not in those words of course)
the way round it would be (if she can set her own schedule) start her day at the site that is closest to her and finish her day at one that is close to your home.
Is there anyone else in the organisation that does the same as her that she can get together with to approach HR?

[joko]

i would suggest your wife goes into the office every day in future...get to the main office at the proper start time, taking only 15 mins and then set off for the first visit from there...

dont see that they could complain much really then...

if she need jusitification, perhaps she could even adjust her work schedule if possible, by doing an hour of office duties each morning, before setting off - instead on setting aside whole days or weeks of it.

i assume she works to her own schedule and time frame so this should be acceptable.

[birdie1971]

Thanks for all your suggestions and opinions everyone. They're all very much appreciated.