Using your own car for work?

Ouch What on earth are you driving that 45p a mile doesn't cover fuel.

Although you get paid mileage, that dosent really cover the true cost of using the car for example wear and tear?

It depends on what car you have.
I drive a 5 year old, efficient, low tax car that cost under £10k a couple of years ago.
The 45p a mile easily covers all the running costs of fuel, insurance, servicing etc. I find most months I can easily cover the running costs and most of the car loan.
In return I get to have car to use at weekends and holidays that costs me basically nothing other than the fuel for personal use.

It does seem unfair that the the lowest paid workers, domestic cleaners and carers, who will tend to do multiple short journeys which are tough on your car and they probably struggle to cover costs/ maintenance at .45p. Someone who covers 100 miles a day on a motorway will be making a profit.

I get 45p per mile but I end up making money on that as I'm paid from my front door and my Volvo is a dream to run

I receive around £350 per month tax free in mileage

@BIossomtoes not if you're doing constant home visits it isn't

I do all my driving on short journeys in a big city. Most of my journeys are 3 - 13 miles. (When doing a long journey, I take the other car).
I would be very concerned if not getting 30 mpg.

Under those conditions you probably wouldn’t be driving at all. Public transport would be quicker.

If you’re driving short journeys through congested cities the mpg could easily be 15mpg

There’s no such thing as the HMRC rate. 45p is the maximum you can be paid tax free so most organisations use it to keep things simple for payroll purposes. Every NHS trust is a separate entity and makes its own financial policies.

How come NHS are paying more than HMRC rates?

I'm in another public sector organisation and we get 45p for the first 10k miles, but we're expected to use pool or hire cars if available and costs less so only use own cars for the occasional short journey if all the pool cars are being used by someone else and the hire car would cost more than paying private car mileage.

You need to get that rate. It was 44p in our NHS trust for many many years, and it's recently gone up to 56p. It does drop to 20 something pence though after 3000 miles ( in 1 year), and then resets again.

Yes, they don't have a say in that. Everyone pays for their own travel to work.

@Deathbyfluffy if I was doing long journeys on the motorway it would cover it but stop, start jounrveys around the city where I work it doesn't really.

I live rurally and it’s fairly common for adverts to specify that you need to drive and have your own transport as work location not served by public transport. Even for posts like admin where you don’t need to drive. It’s four miles to the nearest bus stop mainly uphill so it’d be a brutal cycle.

Generally people with convoluted arrangements that involve other people for getting to work don’t stay long term as they find somewhere more convenient. I’d of said it’s practical rather than discriminatory but willing to be wrong.

HMRC need to increase the tax allowance. It must be around 10 years that it has stuck at 45p. It would definitely be a vote winner. We get 17p per mile and have to make a submission to HMRC to claim the difference.

Not being able to drive due to a disability is a protected characteristic

Obviously as a visually impaired person I would never apply for a role that actually required driving as that would be daft

Nevertheless if a company told me that I had to be able to drive for a job that didn't require driving I would challenge that.

And in my experience people who regularly take public transport are often more punctual as they plan to get their early. Where as plenty of car drivers "get stuck in traffic" because they haven't planned to get to work 10-20 minutes earlier due to the bus timetable

Being able to drive isn’t a protected characteristic, so they can stipulate it even if your car isn’t needed for the job.

People who drive are much more punctual as they don’t have to rely on our shaky public transport in this country.

I’m rural and car seems to go through lots of fuel going up and down hilly, bumpy roads. The cost of extra insurance and petrol. I don’t think it’s worth it so I drive the 12 miles and take a work car. Work cars are nicer than mines anyway, heated seats and adjustable lumbar support. My spine thanks me!

Do you drive a Chieftain Tank?
45p per mile equals about 15MPG, so either you’re driving something terrible on fuel or your maths is way off!

Adding business use on our car insurance cost like a fiver a year more than just personal use.

Not everyone declares that their vehicle is used for business use!

My employer needs proof that my car is insured for business use, otherwise they won’t pay expenses.

Of course you will be paying the extra insurance premium for driving your car on business. That isn't worth it for just a few miles a year.

It cost me about £2 more to have business use on my policy. I'd get that back in one journey claimed.

@BungleandGeorge is isn't discriminatory to say you need to be able to drive to do a particular job - like it isn't discriminatory to say you need to be physically capable to take on a gardening or bricklaying or roofing job, or you need to be fluent in the language to take on a translators job, or have the necessary qualifications to do vast numbers of jobs. It is a skillset needed for the job. Perfectly normal and sensible, and, indeed, reassuring. Most employers won't care how you travel to and from one base, but where the job involves you visiting many sites / clients / offices / customers then of course it is a requirement of the job.

https://www.hse-network.com/what-are-your-responsibilities-when-it-comes-to-grey-fleet-management/ states the following:

Driver safety - In summary, you must ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of all employees while at work, and ensure that others are not put at risk by your work-related driving activities. Added to that, you must carry out an assessment of the risks to the health and safety of your employees, while they are at work, and to other people who may be affected by your organisation’s work activities. It is not just a case of ticking boxes; rather, that you genuinely care for the health and well-being of your employees. It is recommended that a designated, competent person have full responsibility for managing grey fleet safety in line with the organisation’s wider driver safety policy. Additionally, line managers and supervisors should be trained and fully understand their responsibilities for helping to manage grey fleet safety. It is advisable for employment contracts to specify that drivers using their own vehicles for work purposes must abide by the same policies and procedures as company car drivers and that drivers’ understanding of this is confirmed in writing.

Insurance - The key point to address is whether the driver is legally entitled to use the vehicle for business purposes. Driver licence checks and a visual inspection of insurance documents can confirm this. Note that standard personal vehicle insurance does NOT usually cover a driver for business use. If an incident happens while an employee is driving their own vehicle for work purposes and that driver is not correctly covered, it’s unlikely that the driver’s insurance company will cover the costs. Furthermore, in the case of a serious incident, failure to ensure that the employee was adequately insured could leave your company open to potential prosecution, civil litigation and damage to reputation. If insured correctly, a driver using their own vehicle for work purposes will be covered by their insurance policy, should a collision occur. Remember that the risk to your company comes if the driver does NOT have insurance that allows for business use, or has the wrong type of insurance. In these cases, it IS possible for your company to be considered to have “vicarious responsibility” – where someone is held responsible for the actions of another person

Not everyone declares that their vehicle is used for business use!

But we're talking about people driving while at work.

Some jobs need to get to places in a timely fashion and/or carry equipment so public transport/cycling/walking isn't really going to be practical unless the work is based in a town or city where modes of transport other than private cars will be an advantage.

But no, it's not discriminatory to require someone to be able to drive, and even supply a car, to do a job that involves driving and use of own car.