Opinions please? Sorry a bit long.

[fifitot]

I work for a public sector organisation which has the usual budget restrictions. I am seconded to a small training agency though still employed my original employer. It is my first managerial post and want to make a good impression. I have to liaise alot with my employer and as a favour to them my boss (in the seconded team where I work) agreed that I should manage one of their staff who shares a similar role as the ones I manage (trainers). This person (lets call him Jim) was taking a grievance out so for me to manage him helped them out while this was going on.

Part of my role is to approve expenses. All my training staff claim a lunch allowance when they are away from the office and there is no problem with this. So when Jim put his expenses in I treated them like all my other staff and approved them, lunch allowance and all.

12 months on and my main employer are furious. They have just realised I have been approving Jim to have a lunch allowance and it has taken their expenses budget into the red. According the the rather vague policy I think that like my other staff, he is entitled to it but it is a bit of a grey area and they are saying they would never have approved it. (Basically the policy says if you are away from your main place of work over lunch you can get the allowance. He is but they are saying as he is out every day then this constitutes a mobile post and he shouldn't get it - though there is nothing in writing about it.)

I feel really stupid and know my main employers will not thnk well of me because of this. I haven't done anything wrong as far as I can see and did ring finance to check the procedures but wasn't specific about Jim so maybe they would have given a different answer it they'd known his circumstances. i was only treating him the same as all the other staff I manage. My boss (on the secondment) is just annoyed at them for making this fuss when we had done them a favour managing him in the first place - for no cost to them and refuses to reimburse them. She thinks they should have formalised the arrangements for managing him temporarily.

Still makes me feel really crap though. I know they will be cursing me in my old job.

Any views on this?

Poor you. What a horrible situation.

Sounds as tbough you did all you could to understand the expenses. You spoke to Finance and they didn't indicate there were any different payment terms for staff.

You were doing a favour in managing Jim and you could expect any differences in Jim's renumeration to be highlighted.

One thing I would ask. If Jim was not entitled to lunch payment why did he claim for it. Did he only start claiming when you managed him or had he claimed before.

Ann-Marie

Thanks. He only started to claim it when I took over but that was because that's when he began to be out of the office most of the time. Also he spoke to the rest of our team who always have claimed it. He acted in good fait. As did I.