Am I entitled to travel time?

[Mice!]

as an apprentice or young person you are only allowed to work a certain number of hours, so if your doing say 6 or 7 hours at college you can't then drive for 5 hrs, you should be staying over night and driving back the following day.

something to be careful of, are you employed directly by the "large" company or by a training group? I know a few larger organisations now do this for the duration of the apprenticeships and even send them out to other companies, this way any problems or Muppets get weeded out.

as for being grateful you have a job, don't be daft if you want to work you will, doing an apprenticeship these days means four or five years of lower pay hoping for higher pay in the future.

[keeper96]

After a quick look into claiming back through hmrc I don’t think I’d be able to as I haven’t kept a mileage log throughout the year, 

i would be able to calculate the miles accurately as I have all my term time dates but the hmrc doesn’t allow you to create data for historical events. 

J

[keeper96]

With regards to place of work my contract says this

“4.1. Your place of employment shall be at *newcastle* [or such other places as the organisation may require]”

ive substitutes Newcastle for my depot name just for privacy, have they covered themselves with the other such places statement? 

[team tractor]

8 hours ago, Mice! said:

as an apprentice or young person you are only allowed to work a certain number of hours, so if your doing say 6 or 7 hours at college you can't then drive for 5 hrs, you should be staying over night and driving back the following day.

something to be careful of, are you employed directly by the "large" company or by a training group? I know a few larger organisations now do this for the duration of the apprenticeships and even send them out to other companies, this way any problems or Muppets get weeded out.

as for being grateful you have a job, don't be daft if you want to work you will, doing an apprenticeship these days means four or five years of lower pay hoping for higher pay in the future.

My lads clock 10-12 hours in a single day at college . That’s plus driving back.

thats a standard day now at burton college. To much to do and little time to do it .

[stagboy]

10 hours ago, keeper96 said:

With regards to place of work my contract says this

“4.1. Your place of employment shall be at *newcastle* [or such other places as the organisation may require]”

ive substitutes Newcastle for my depot name just for privacy, have they covered themselves with the other such places statement?  

They might have done, but the wording strikes me as unclear. Where there is an ambiguity, tribunals tend to favour the individual employee. You might want to ask for clarification, and then , if necessary, take some advice.

At the same time, you have to be pragmatic; is it really worth the candle making a fuss? For example, if they are providing you with convenient and cheap accommodation on site, then it could be argued that you are much better off than most weekly commuters.

The point about an apprenticeship is that it is a foot on the bottom rung; you aren't actually worth much on the open market just now, but you have potential for the future, and your employer is making you more valuable through training. In that sense, it's a partnership.

Of course, nobody should use young apprentices as cheap labour to be exploited. There is a  balance to be struck.

[amateur]

11 hours ago, keeper96 said:

After a quick look into claiming back through hmrc I don’t think I’d be able to as I haven’t kept a mileage log throughout the year, 

i would be able to calculate the miles accurately as I have all my term time dates but the hmrc doesn’t allow you to create data for historical events. 

J

Not at all true.

If you have the dates that you attended college and the mileage to and from, then of course the calculation would be accepted

[Wb123]

5 hours ago, amateur said:

Not at all true.

If you have the dates that you attended college and the mileage to and from, then of course the calculation would be accepted

This. 

 

That said do you pay enough tax to actually get anything back? Apprentice wage of circa £2.60 an hour would fall below income tax would it not? (I may be wrong but as I understand it ni contributions don't count when offsetting expenses).

[amateur]

2 hours ago, Wb123 said:

This. 

 

That said do you pay enough tax to actually get anything back? Apprentice wage of circa £2.60 an hour would fall below income tax would it not? (I may be wrong but as I understand it ni contributions don't count when offsetting expenses).

That is of course also true - if you are not paying income tax, you have nothing to claim against.

The first point of call should be your employer to ask if they would pay your expenses.

Certainly in the days when I looked after such things, we would have paid apprentices' reasonable travelling and training expenses 

[keeper96]

I’ve spoken to my union rep, and emailed our HR department, I’m not on apprentice wage as I worked for the company prior to getting the apprenticeship and retained my old wage so I am paying tax. 

When I get some replies I’ll let you all know 

J

[Jason_ox]

Asking you to do a full day at college with potentially another 5-7 hours worth of driving is bang out of order. As your company has a duty of care if anything was to happen to you on the road the excrement would hit the fan. 

If it’s such a large company I would of thought all of this would be dealt with very well but it seems the opposite! 

Could they not supply you with a pool car and fuel card? Rail tickets etc this was done when I was an apprentice 15 years ago going on block release to college, as well as I could claim back on expenses all my food and drink. 

They should really be booking you in accommodation for every time regardless of it’s just a day here and there. 

Good luck getting the travel time though!