Meal allowance when working away

[Workingfornothing]

Can anyone please advise. I’ve looked but can’t make much sense. Is there a legal requirement for a company to provide you with meal expenses when working away? Currently my partner sometimes works away and sometimes works local. When he’s local he has breakfast at home, takes a packed lunch, and a hot drink in a flask and water/juice, then obviously has evening meal at home. When he works away his employer pays for his hotel, and £20 for an evening meal. That’s it. If the evening meal is under £20 he gets that amount back only. If it’s over £20 he only gets £20. Every time he works away he’s using his own money as he has to buy his meals and drinks (excluding £20) So it’s costing him, and other employees, to do their job. I just can’t see how this is fair. So, is there any legislation to say meals must be provided by the employer?

So the Gov.uk guidelines are £25 per night you're working away for more than 24 hours!
You're expected to incorporate your usual breakfast and lunch cost into this ( I don't agree with this as you are not at home)
My guys work away a lot i put them in air b n bs and places they can do a food shop etc and have them use the £25 on their evening meal as they've usually worked a long hard day!
If they go over not a problem, I'm not a dragon with this sort of things as them working away makes my business run of course.
This allowance hasn't gone up in years and it needs too!

If he eats in a Wetherspoons, you can get a meal and drink for about £13. Also order crisps, nuts, apple bag to make it up to £20. Every little helps

My dd is away a lot, she gets allowance for breakfast if not served at her hotel and dinner is paid up to £25 max one alcoholic drink, lunch isn’t paid which annoys her as she makes lunch and so she demanded a fridge in her accommodation and got it so can prep lunches

He often works in London - very few places you can get a decent dinner for less than £20!

Well I live in London and it’s easy enough to find a pub meal for 15 quid. He could get a Spoons curry for half his allowance - and it includes a drink!

Is the real problem that he was hoping he could claim a fancy meal on expenses and it hasn’t turned out like that?

I’m confused; can’t he just get a meal deal for lunch like the rest of us, and go in Spoons for dinner? Quids in.

Come on op. Sure this isn’t generous, but OF COURSE with a tiny bit of thought it wouldn’t cost him more than eating at home. Take home made stuff for breakfast/lunch that doesn’t need a fridge. Same cost as home. Then £20 will get you a fairly decent evening meal, and for free. He’d have to pay for that at home.

the posters talking of very generous expenses probably work for companies where their particular skill is in demand/niche , and thus their salary is far higher accordingly too.

I’m just staggered that so many people on this thread, including the op it seems, can’t work out that cereal or bacon butties aren’t the only breakfast options. Adults can SURELY all work out that they could make then take some flap jacks for example? And, if that’s not enough, little tip, take two. And if that’s not enough, put more seeds and nuts in it. And if that’s not enough, take two.

I think they ought to provide him with breakfast. You can expect someone to provide their own lunch the first day, but after that it's difficult - lots of people take lunch to work because buying it is expensive. Premier Inn breakfasts are great, and good value.

I don't necessarily think companies need to pay excessive amounts of subsistence but if you're expecting staff to be away from home, you shouldn't make it miserable.

That’s exactly it. We take packed lunches to work. We take coffee in a flask or travel mug. There’s no facility to make a packed lunch when you’re away, so even a meal deal costs more than the packed lunch we make.

It’s been brought up many times. They don’t listen, they say they’re being generous with the £20 per evening meal 🤷‍♀️

but your expenses will be less when he’s not eating at home and can be used for his away from home meals.

This is what I found, and assumed meant there was no legal requirement, but if company’s want to and claim anything back, these are the guidelines. 😔

I worked for a company like this and it was even weirder. I could have half a bottle of wine with dinner, but want allowed to claim for bottled water. I used to get three meal deals for about £15 and some diet coke. It was enoght food for the day.

That’s exactly my point, and I hoped they would do this, but no. It’s more frustrating when you’re a heavy manual worker and need lots of calories.

Oh I wish …☺️

Hotels usually have a mini fridge he's a big boy he can buy some ham and salad and milk and cereal and pop it in the little fridge to make some lunch and breakfast and then grab a chippy tea or something

Think you just want something for nothing and hiding it as food allowance

Where exactly is he supposed to make a breakfast? How is supposed to make a large packed lunch? I’ve already said there’s no fridge or cooking facilities - we’re talking Travelodge. I’ve also said he takes porridge pots, fruit, nuts, cereal bars etc and also large bottles of water/juice to keep costs down as much as possible.

I think I’m lucky as we don’t have a specific budget, just guideline to be reasonable and no alcohol. Breakfast at the hotel is always included, and I even expense a coffee at the train station / airport and sometimes a small snack during the day. Basically I feel that you should be able to spend what you normally would spend if the trip was for personal reason, ie don’t go overboard just because it is paid by someone else but also not be more frugal than you would at home.

He can find places to eat, not always cheap places for dinner mind you. My point is the associated costs incurred with having to buy breakfast and lunch when working away, when he doesn’t have to do this at home, how it’s unfair that the company feels £20 is enough for their workers to do to their job away as opposed to home.

HMRC allow £25 per day. I’m no accountant but if he got more then I think he could be taxed on it.

The guidelines are for how companies can claim money back, not what they legally have to give employees unfortunately 😕

He looks for Wetherspoons, but they’re not often in the places he’s in. He will order crisps/bottled drinks etc to take him up to his £20 if his meal is under, but that’s very rare tbh.

The Civil Service department in only gives a little over £18 for an evening meal! There's a lunch allowance of about £5 and another fiver for overnight subsistence I think. Its always a bit annoying when the cheapest pizza on the menu in London is nearly as much as my meal allowance!

We pay the HRMC subsistence rates in my business.

£5 if you work for over 5 hours away from work premises

£10 if you work for over 10 hours away from work premises

£20 if you work after 8pm but less than 15 hours away from work premises

£25 if you work over 15 hours away and/or overnight from work premises

The company can ask HMRC to do a personalised scale rate for them if they feel that it's not adequate for them (I.E. London rates maybe).

We also offer all our staff a bonus of £30 for the inconvenience of working away but this is classed as a bonus and therefore is taxed whereas subsistence is not taxed.

Hope this helps.

Where abouts is he based ? I thought Wetherspoons was fairly ubiquitous.