Tea and coffee in the staffroom.....how do you sort it out and who pays for it?

[calzone]

Morale is at an all time low and the segregation is high.

We used to pay (a lot) of money and everything was provided.

As always, some do not pay but still drink and eat and so a few decided to bring their own and not pay.

This situation is now utterly ridiculous.

Milk, tea, coffee is labelled by year group, no one will share biscuits or sweeteners and it is embarrassing when visitors arrive as to what they can drink.

I brought in milk and biscuits for everyone to use to try and get it back on track but it was all used in a day and not replaced.

We need team building. We need to sort this out.

Heeeelp!!!!!

Any thoughts?

The reason that many teachers and staff in many different workplaces have to pay 'tea money' is that it is not a tax-deductible expense for business purposes. Not sure how long this has been clarified but I know that for many years many businesses thought it was deductible and when they realized it wasn't stopped the free tea.

floatiarechargednow where did you get that from about it not being tax deductible?

Businesses are allowed to provide staff with free tea and coffee and it is tax deductible for the business, not a 'benefit' for the employee either and has been for as long as I can remember.

www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/eimanual/eim21863.htm

Link showing you can provide tea and coffee to staff as long as it is to all staff.

When I worked in a school I would pay for my teams tea, coffee etc and about once a half term I would buy breakfast too.

PTA used to pay, then decided to stop, so we all had to bring our own. Some of us clubbed together, others chose to go it alone. It worked fairly well until we realised that the peripatetic teachers were just helping themselves to it and we ended up having to hide all our supplies when they came in. HT was also too mean to contribute, but also helped himself to our supplies for governors and parents. Lots of resentment. Then we got a new HT who agreed the situation was ridiculous and now tea,coffee,milk and sugar are paid for by school. Cakes, biscuits etc appear when people have birthdays and the SMT buy choccies weekly. Much nicer atmosphere at break now.

We all contribute about £10 per term and visitors help themselves. We were told by County Council audit thzt school could not provide free drinks for staff!

My DS's godmother is a teacher, she says that they have to provide everything. There is milk if the children haven't drunk it at snack time. They have no water coolers either.

Tea, washing up and car parking. Guaranteed to cause a huge fuss everywhere I've ever worked, in schools and elsewhere.

As I understand it schools aren't allowed to spend school fund on teachers' tea club as the money has to be used for the benefit of the children.

At our school, milk is bought by the kitchen and the cost "lost" in the catering bills, not strictly allowed either. Staff bring their own tea/coffee and sugar. There is a secret stash in the office for visitors but we have to keep changing the hiding place or it disappears.

There was a tea club but it was always the same few who contributed and no-one wanted to administer it.

I have acquired a taste for plain hot water. Just as comforting as a mug of tea, better for you and means I am well out of it

I pay for it.You are not supposed to use school money to buy tea and coffee etc.

Our staff pay £2 a week. There is a book with everyone's name & the weeks marked off. You just put your money in the tin and tick your name off.

I only work 2 days a week on a supply basis, I don't really drink hot drinks but I put a £1 a week in, so that if I do fancy a cuppa I can have one.

If the tin runs low on funds a notice goes up on the whiteboard that it's Value biscuits until the tin is topped up - it's doesn't usually take long!

We don't charge visitors / governors etc & regularly make hot drinks for meetings / students etc.

The arguments about loading and unloading the dishwasher on the other hand....

We have to tot up how many cups we drink over a week and put money in the fund weekly or half termly. Donation if you only use milk or eat biscuits!

It is ridiculous and the office staff get arsey if you forget even if it's parents evenings/ report writing time and you have lots on.

May bring up free stuff with the well being rep.

love that tax thing ta boysandme

Boysandme that doesn't apply to school budget as we have have to show our money is being spent on the children ...public money and all that

Secondary - We have a free machine which I never use as it's powdered milk. It has soup, hot choc, decaff etc. There is a water cooler too. Biscuits are provided daily, fruit every other day and cake on Fridays (or if we put special effort in for anything!) :) Free lunch if you run a club or have a Parents evening. Bottled water provided on tables for parents evening along with hot drinks and cake available throughout.

Departments all have their own fridges and we can get free milk from the kitchens. We bring in our own tea & coffee for the dept but no-one cares if anyone else drinks 'their' beverage. I supply painkillers for the department. People randomly bring in biscuits / cakes for the department.

Good staff morale :)

Tea, coffee, milo, milk, sugar, tomato sauce, bbq sauce, salt, pepper, bread, butter, vegemite, biscuits always available. Once a month bring-a-plate morning tea for all birthdays. Catered sandwiches, cakes once per week for whole staff meeting. Once per week 'soup club' (4 staff members bring a different soup on a rota, school provides crusty bread). Usually at least one morning tea per month provided by some outside provider or another. Any PD day is also fully catered. Sometimes I feel like we never seem to stop eating.

We pay in a tenner per term which provides all you can drink plus biccies and fruit. End of each term we spend the change on a lunch, simples.

Official school policy, tea bags & coffee are provided but you have to bring your own milk/sugar/biscuits. We do this in the main staffroom, but in our department we have sugar (I don't actually knows who buys it but it's always there, I don't use it anyway) and we take it in turns to buy a 2l bottle of milk when it runs out.

£35 per half term... absolutely ridiculous and I refuse to pay. As do most others. I don't have tea/coffee/biscuits during the day. The staffroom is deserted - everyone hides in their classrooms marking while they eat their packed lunch. Depressing.
I am moving to a new school (independent) and it is all included plus breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea served after school. It makes me sad how great the stark contrast is between the treatment of staff at my current and (what I have seen so far!) at my future school.

We pay £3.00 a week. No biscuits.

At my first school we had a complicated system in our department based on average weekly consumption. We were the Maths department though and it was scrupulously fair.

As a member of the pta, we just help ourselves to drinks in the staff room and are never asked to put money in but we also give back. We recently had 60 cans of diet coke that were just out of date that we put in the staff room, we always give the leftover biscuits from parents evening and we sell other leftovers from events very cheaply to the staff.

Boys where on earth I get that from is from doing accounts for businesses for over two decades. You used to be able to regard tea and coffee for employees as a tax deductible business expense but no longer.

The various HMRC documents you are linking to are in regard to it being a chargeable tax benefit to the employee, not the employer, as in declaring a company car, for example.

We have a spreadsheet, full time staff pay 4 pounds a month, part-timers 3 pounds and people who don't drink tea or coffee pay £1.50 for the dish washer tablets even if they do not sit in the staff-room.

No-one has yet clocked on to the fact that people who don't drink tea or coffee might use milk for their cereal and I just can't be bothered to bring it up in our monthly team brief.

Visitors and staff from other departments help themselves for free. Again I can't bring myself to be that bothered by this, although some people get very upset by it.

One day when I win the lottery I am going to donate a lifetime supply of tea, coffee, sugar and dishwasher tablets to them.