Can he claim travelling expenses?

[Nicketynac]

Asking on behalf of BIL. He is quite young and inexperienced and doesn’t want to ask at work about this.
He works for the local council on a zero hours contract, travelling between schools (occasionally local halls) providing sports coaching and after school sports clubs/ breakfast clubs. He is often at one school for only an hour or two which may be his entire work for the day or he may go to another one or two in the same day. He does not get paid any travelling expenses. Is he entitled to?
He may go to the same school more than once in the same week, or regularly e.g. once a week for six weeks of coaching a particular class but there is no real pattern and as such, no permanent workplace.
He averages only six paid hours a week (he is also expected to “volunteer” more hours or else he won’t be offered more hours which is a whole other issue) so his travelling expenses take up a lot of his salary and he is not in a union.
Any advice?

He needs to see what’s in his contract

As above he needs to see what is in his contract, in particular had he got a base? He should not be out of pocket though for doing his job

Thanks for replies. He doesn’t have a base. Everything is organised via email or phone, except for occasional training. His managers are based in the main council offices but he rarely has to go there so that could not be used as a base. I will ask if he has a copy of his contract.
He has the council employee handbook but it doesn’t cover these kind of travelling expenses, just business trips.
If it is not mentioned in his contract could he still be entitled to some?
There are other people doing the same/ similar jobs - I will ask him to ask them if they claim anything.
What about the volunteer hours? Would they be treated differently?

I work for our local authority, visiting schools and we get our mileage paid for, minus the miles from home to base. He needs to ask his line manager if it’s not clear in the information he has.

He should join a union if he's not in one.

I am going to speak to my own union rep today and see if he can advise (I work elsewhere in public sector).
All of the people doing this job are at or just out of college so maybe none of them have questioned it. It only arose as he was paid extra in error and he discussed it with MIL and she asked if it could have been an error with expenses and he said he didn’t get any. He easily spends as much time travelling as working for them.

Is he sure he is, employed by them rather than be in contracted independently? If employed by a Council, he would have a base and it would most likely be against their policy not to pay for travel between sites. They might not pay though if he is employed a contractor.

He is an employee as far as he knows - he is PAYE through their payroll and submits forms each month to a supervisor to be signed off for payment. He definitely doesn’t have a real base although I appreciate his contract may name one.
I have spoken to him today. He plans to check with colleagues then manager. He is also away to find out which union he should join so hopefully he will get it sorted.
Thanks everyone

I suspect from what you have said that his base is deemed to be whichever school he’s contracted to work in on that particular day, and if that is the case then it will just be his commute to work and he won’t be able to claim expenses. Agree with everyone else though that he needs to check with his manager.

chessie but what about when he gets sent from one to another in the same day? It can also be a split shift so e.g. breakfast club 7.45 -9 then lunch club elsewhere at 12.30 so even if this is at he same school he has to leave and come back so two journeys. (Not every day is like this, a lot of them are just one club or class per day. Or none. And he gets enough notice I think)

Don’t know - this is why he needs to ask his manager!