Air, rail, hotels . . . . bikes? Staff at Newcastle City Council have been offered a variation on the usual salary sacrifice scheme for cars with an equivalent one for bicycles, a sign of the council’s environmental commitment.

The cycle scheme was designed to promote healthy lifestyles, says head of parking services Craig Mordue. It has, though, had problems with the unclear tax status of these schemes.

He explains: “We had been going to run a scheme where bikes were sold to staff after a year for 5% of their cost, but HMRC said this has to be graduated for depreciation selling for 25% at the end of the first year, 18% the second and so on.”

Newcastle City Council staff travel is mainly for conferences, social services escorting and some economic development work.

All travel requirements are handled by the Travel Bureau Gosforth (TBG), a local independent travel agent with both corporate and leisure arms. It was chosen by the North East Purchasing Organisation after a conventional procurement exercise, rather than off a framework. Other north east councils may make use of Newcastle’s deal if they wish.

Procurement manager Sean Murphy explains: “We looked at the market and decided to go out in lots for rail, air and accommodation and also for a one-stop shop, which is what we now have.”

The contract also covers car hire and ferries, but little use is made of either.

TBG produces a single consolidated invoice every month, which relieves the council of the costs of processing a large volume of individual transactions.

“What we wanted with rail was the ability to self-book,” Murphy says. “The booking is done by staff approaching our in-house travel office which then books through the supplier.”

The travel office is staffed by council employees and handles corporate travel, public transport use, pool cars and the salary sacrifice schemes for bikes and cars. Other staff not permitted to make bookings directly.

“We do not want people looking around for what they think is the cheapest travel price. It isn’t their job to do that and they should leave to those whose job it is,” Murphy says.

The contract allows the council to print out rail tickets from a machine paid for from savings generated by the contract.

“We find it gives us the flexibility we need so there is someone in the travel office who can shop around and say that two singles would be cheaper than a return, or whatever,” he says.

Self-booking was introduced this autumn for air travel “but there is not a great deal of it,” Murphy admits.

“I wouldn’t expect someone to fly to London because by the time they have got to airports at each end and checked in it is quicker to take the train and more environmentally friendly, but someone might fly to Bristol which is an expensive and long journey by train.”

Accommodation requests go via the travel office to TBG and the council specifies a minimum of three-star hotels for staff on council business.

“We want staff to stay somewhere safe and clean, not to go somewhere that might be cheaper but might pose health and safety issues,” he says.

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