How do you feel about rail staff travel

[Peterthegreat]

However, if you have BR travel facilities, the company that your are employed by (including TOCs) has to pay Rail Staff Travel/Rail Delivery Group (RDG) money. And hence this is classed as a benefit in kind and you will be taxed on it, regardless if you actually use the facilities.

Incorrect. Passenger TOCs reciprocate facilities and no money changes hands. Hence those working for passenger TOCs with safeguarded facilities do not pay tax as a benefit in kind.

 

[Annetts key]

Incorrect. Passenger TOCs reciprocate facilities and no money changes hands. Hence those working for passenger TOCs with safeguarded facilities do not pay tax as a benefit in kind.

Does this apply to all companies that an employee has facilities for, including the Underground, the Eurostar and the ferry companies (if they have any employees left that have these facilities).

If yes, that does rather make it a bit more unfare if you are employed by a railway company other than a TOC

In answer to is it taxable, here is the relevant web page from the government web site. Although for some strange reason, the last bit only mentions buses! But it applies to railways as well. Also here.

 

[AndrewE]

I have had BR travel facilities for over 40 years and can assure you that they are not taxable.

If (like me) you ended up working for a company which didn't run trains but after privatisation bought in your ongoing free travel, you found out the hard way that your employer paid something like £1000 or £1500 for your concessions in retirement. The bad news was that this was followed up by a tax demand for it the year after you retired - when you had no income other than your pension!

 

[Lemmy99uk]

Maybe you can argue my case with the inland revenue then...

I think you need to do that yourself.

As I suggested earlier, and Bald Rick confirmed, you will pay tax if your employer purchases in the travel facilities from RDG.

Former BR employees and current TOC employees (which is the bulk of staff travel facility holders), should not be paying any tax on their travel facilities, and, if they are, they should take action to have that tax refunded.

 

[Bald Rick]

Former BR employees and current TOC employees (which is the bulk of staff travel facility holders), should not be paying any tax on their travel facilities, and, if they are, they should take action to have that tax refunded.

I think you mean former BR employees that are now TOC employees and have not had a break in service, but otherwise corrrect. Plenty of former BR employees who don’t work for TOCs who will be taxed (self included).

 

[35B]

I'm not sure what you mean. The customers believe they pay the bills, although it is the government at present, but are not held to the same standards of behaviour as rail staff - I know of a couple who have lost their jobs through their behaviour while travelling which would not have happened to ordinary fare paying passengers.

It’s very simply that the experience of heavily discounted travel, especially at a senior level, creates a distorted view of the experience of customers. I have the same view of the steep discounts available in some other sectors, aviation in particular. Some posts on this thread illustrate that gulf quite clearly.

Many companies in all kinds of industries give their staff discounts on their products. Paying a lot less (or nothing) for a service is a useful benefit, but doesn’t make you see it through any kind of rose tinted lens, especially when you’re using trains to commute yourself.

I agree, discounted services are worthwhile - I see that with friends working for retailers who get discounts on their purchases. It’s the scale I have an issue with, for its ability to distort the perspective brought by cost.

 

[Mag_seven]

It’s very simply that the experience of heavily discounted travel, especially at a senior level, creates a distorted view of the experience of customers.

I suspect many rail pass holders would think twice about just hopping on 07.00 Manchester Euston and similar services if they actually had to pay the "real world" fare.

 

[Haywain]

I suspect many rail pass holders would think twice about just hopping on 07.00 Manchester Euston and similar services if they actually had to pay the "real world" fare.

That will equally apply to ‘New entrant’ staff without free travel on Avanti. Even at 75% discount the Anytime fares are horrendous compared to Off Peak.

 

[RJ]

I’m happy with my staff travel facilities. I get a TOCNE Priv, free travel on my employer’s trains and on TOCs owned by the same group, Priv Oyster, a TfL staff pass, FIP, preferential Eurostar rates and the rest.

The TOCNE Priv increased in value when the benefit was extended to Off Peak tickets - that should have reduced the ire towards it a fair bit. The Oyster comes in handy too.

There are also the unofficial perks. On manned trains if you approach the guard and ask to buy a ticket from them, they’ll often use their discretion. As for areas where there is no second member of staff on the train, let’s face it, Priv tickets are usually dirt cheap over those routes. There’s not much excuse for trying to hustle a ride in those parts.

There are ongoing issues with what to do when buying a ticket isn’t possible. Some stations are gated when Priv tickets aren’t available for sale and this can be a source of friction, as can buying on board if there was no previous opportunity to get one.

All in all I am happy with the benefits package. I don’t miss what I never had with boxes (well I had them at one point!) but it is what it is. It’s not BR any more, it’s a distinct set of private operators. Whilst free travel across the board would of course be nice, it’s not something I spend any time thinking about.

Generating several thousand pounds a year of credit to spend on rail tickets online was also an option and something I would do to bring the cash cost down to a round figure of 0.

 

[Andrew1395]

The inland revenue lost a high court case in the 1980s, where a teacher at a private school who got free education for their child at the school they were employed at, challenged the benefit in kind tax ruling. They won and again when the inland revenue went to appeal. Basically the courts agreed that providing the free school place was de minimus (of no consequential cost) to the school. As to do so, did not require it to employ any additional resource. Therefore as the school had not spent anything providing the benefit, there could not be a benefit in kind tax liability.

This ruling applied to BR and London Transport, etc. And staff no longer were taxed for travel concessions.

At privatisation fees for the travel, and the administration of the concessions, were introduced. As TOCs were obliged to honour the travel concessions of safeguarded staff, they were not charged any fees for their own safeguarded staff. As it was considered a reciprocal arrangement. In effect the cost of providing travel to all the current and retired beneficiaries and their dependents was greater or equal to the fees that would have applied to their own safeguarded staff. After all there were nearly 400,000 retired staff and dependents of BR that neither it or the government paid to have their concessions retained after privatisation.

For other privatised parts of BR that did not provide passenger train services to the safeguarded group, fees were charged and a tax liability was created for the individual beneficiary. This followed the pattern of the earlier pre 1993 act privatisations of BR businesses, eg BREL.

To help the Railtrack sale, the government gave Railtrack a five year grace period where no fees applied either.


At retirement for all safeguarded staff (including Redundancy and receiving travel as if retired), the individual ceases to be an employee, but their former employer pays admin fees for the safeguarded travel administration levied by Staff travel up to the individuals 73 birthday. This is paid as a lump sum and does generate a tax liability to the individual. As in effect you getting something paid for you after you leave employment

Having said all this the loss of free and private rate car parking at stations. Priv rate cartage, special rates for scrap materials were also concessions that were worth having.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Would a guard / TM ever get into hot water for giving staff a free ride (say if an RPI boarded) ? Or do they have absolute discretion on their own train?

No, RPI/RPO staff answer to the TM, Its the TMs train ultimately and the TM can decline a RPI doing ticket checks on their train if they wish, or they can decide what action RPIs can take.

Suprisingly there are guards/TMs that will stop RPOs doing their job, no doubt afraid of the loss of comission on ticket sales. Personally Im happy to have them on board. They spot stuff I have missed and I welcome their input and support and I think any staff turning them down are daft. I will tell them where I am and what I have done but I always leave it in their hands how they want to work the train. They often approach me and ask how I want individuals dealing with, wether its a ticket sale from me or from them, or who fills in the UPFN, I usually leave them to deal with them but will often ticket check alongside them.

 

[bramling]

No, RPI/RPO staff answer to the TM, Its the TMs train ultimately and the TM can decline a RPI doing ticket checks on their train if they wish, or they can decide what action RPIs can take.

Suprisingly there are guards/TMs that will stop RPOs doing their job, no doubt afraid of the loss of comission on ticket sales. Personally Im happy to have them on board. They spot stuff I have missed and I welcome their input and support and I think any staff turning them down are daft. I will tell them where I am and what I have done but I always leave it in their hands how they want to work the train. They often approach me and ask how I want individuals dealing with, wether its a ticket sale from me or from them, or who fills in the UPFN, I usually leave them to deal with them but will often ticket check alongside them.

I’d say the bigger problem is either when there’s a crew change and a new conductor takes over (in theory the original one should mention it in handover), or perhaps the bigger problem is encountering some kind of block or barrier line at a destination station.

All of a sudden in the latter case things can become rather awkward. Likewise if after a crew change the new conductor has other ideas, though I’m not sure how common that is (in most cases it would probably be a disapproving look rather than making an issue of it).

 

[PupCuff]

No, RPI/RPO staff answer to the TM, Its the TMs train ultimately and the TM can decline a RPI doing ticket checks on their train if they wish, or they can decide what action RPIs can take.

That may be the case for some TOCs but not all - on some TOCs the conductor/TM is indeed in charge of all onboard staff, in other TOCs that isn't the case and staff work independently of each other. (Of course, in reality everyone 99.9% of the time just works together anyway so such circumstances don't actually occur, but if a conductor had tried to tell some of the revenue, catering, whatever staff that I've worked with in the past what to do or not to do, I'd have quite happily brought along the popcorn to watch when it got said)

 

[BluePenguin]

Generating several thousand pounds a year of credit to spend on rail tickets online was also an option and something I would do to bring the cash cost down to a round figure of 0.

What does this mean please? I don’t understand what credit could be generated where

 

[RJ]

What does this mean please? I don’t understand what credit could be generated where

An example of this was being able to generate Tesco Clubcard points and convert them to RedSpottedHanky credit to spend on train tickets - £900-£1800 per quarter if you maxed out your Clubcard allowance. Sadly that door closed a couple of years ago

 

[Wychwood93]

I used to work at John Lewis (in the 1990s!). Staff got 12.5% off in the first year, and 25% thereafter. I don't know if it's still the same. As it stands the staff travel scheme seems good and fair to me. I don't see why everyone needs to get the same benefits irrespective of length of service or when they started. It's normal for there to be a need to change things, as circumstances change.

Our son-in-law works for Sainsbury's - standard 10% discount, which includes offers as well.

 

[LowLevel]

No, RPI/RPO staff answer to the TM, Its the TMs train ultimately and the TM can decline a RPI doing ticket checks on their train if they wish, or they can decide what action RPIs can take.

Suprisingly there are guards/TMs that will stop RPOs doing their job, no doubt afraid of the loss of comission on ticket sales. Personally Im happy to have them on board. They spot stuff I have missed and I welcome their input and support and I think any staff turning them down are daft. I will tell them where I am and what I have done but I always leave it in their hands how they want to work the train. They often approach me and ask how I want individuals dealing with, wether its a ticket sale from me or from them, or who fills in the UPFN, I usually leave them to deal with them but will often ticket check alongside them.

I'm not sure that's entirely correct - as a general rule the guard is in charge of the train in terms of making decisions regarding the safety of the passengers on board (while the driver is nowadays responsible for ensuring the protection of the train itself in the event of any incident and is generally but not always in charge of most of the mechanical things).

However different rules have existed over time regarding staff working on board particularly for customer service and revenue protection.

Where I work I am in charge of how the assistant ticket examiners work on board my train. This is because they are deployed specifically to assist me in selling tickets. In practice with 99% of guards and ATEs you come to a mutual agreement because they've all got many years service over me, the most senior of whom has over 30 years and while he will do as asked by the guard he knows more than enough to make the guard look very stupid indeed if given the opportunity (he probably wouldn't but certainly could).

With Revenue Protection Inspectors it is a different ball game. You can ask them not to check tickets on your train (primarily to stop clowns from whingeing about their commission) but if they do we have no right to insist in how they dispose of issues they detect, though out of politeness some might ask. Once they're doing revenue on my train I keep responsibilities for any customer service issues (and I do still patrol, or they may ask me to help them out if it's busy and get their attention if something is up) but as far as I am concerned I've passed the revenue protection baton over to them.

Also if the guard is suspected of irregular working/being on the fiddle RPIs might be dispatched to covertly monitor them - that might include giving their mates a lift.

On other TOCs still if the RPIs turn up then they're in charge of revenue without question. If an incident occurs they're still required to work to the guard's direction but in terms of revenue they do as they see fit.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

the lack of continuity between TOCs clearly being demonstrated here, but thats how I understand things are with my TOC and I believe us tail lamps have a good relationship with our revenue staff and we are very co-operative with each other...

Personally, I think revenue protection isnt being taken anywhere serious enough by the industry as a whole. That is despite the best efforts of the front line officers, and we have some fantastic revenue staff on TPE and I always welcome them on board. There are far too many holes and inconstancies and information that should be shared isnt. for example, an individual can be barred by LNER for repeat fare evasion uet can still travel (and offend further) on the same route operated by XC, TPE, GC, Northern etc... and their relevant revenue protection department would be none the wiser.. Staff often deployed on ticket barriers are often new starters that have very little ticket training, and have no powers to deal with anyone turning up at the barriers ticketless - and I don't mean this with any disrespect to barrier staff, as I see how badly treated they are by the general public, this is a management issue. But with virtually no knowledge of ticket types, routes etc barriers are usually set to splurge as there is nothing in place for tickets to actually show the mag stripe or barcode data they have so railcard, short fare or child ticket misuse cannot be detected and there is often no backup and support by anyone with authority to detain. Now I get this is not always the case, and I know some staff are really on the ball and are brilliant but from my observations some TOCs see ticket barriers as a liability, a half-hearted box ticking exercise that looks like something is being done and not the revenue protection benefit they could provide if operated properly and with suitably trained staff. Barrier gates are also poorly designed with low height partitions that can easily be climbed over in areas out of site of revenue gate staff. other areas are left wide open so people can easily enter the paid side without encountering ticket checks.

Personally i think revenue protection should be an independent operation, able to cross-work any service on any route, with full PACE training and power of detention (none of this you are free to walk away crap) and to manage al barriers and station blocks. This includes full authority to adapt stations to prevent barrier dodging. Grade 1 listing should NOT be a barrier to this as ticket gates and revenue barriers do not affect the fabric of the building, they are platform fixtures and fittings that can be easily removed. At the same time the fare structure needs a massive review right across the board as the current system is too heavy and confusing. starting with ditching the TOC only fares and standardising the railcards. do we really neeed a 16-25, a 16-17 and a 26-30 railcard? surely a 16-17 and a 18-30 would be a better range. How about one standard railcard right across the board that allows an accompanied plus 1 the same discount and any accompanied children a flat fare. One card that will do everything?

 

[RJ]

Round these parts it’s a bit lawless - people just push through the barriers and not a lot is done about it unless the BTP are about. These people aren’t challenged and I don’t blame the barrier staff for letting it go, because confrontation leads to a risk of abuse or assault which nobody should be exposed to at work.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

I agree with you and therein lies the problem. No backup. Thats why the industry stance is the problem, not the staff who are left to deal with it and rightfully choose not to.

 

[Annetts key]

Revenue Protection is a bit off topic...

 

[BluePenguin]

I’m not a member of staff in the industry although it has always puzzled me how everyone has different entitlements to different facilities. Any overhaul will lead to people losing out so the winners will keep on winning and the losers will keep on losing.

It baffles me that people have to be pretty much be married to get dependent facilities though. Modern day couples have different arrangements these days

 

[221129]

It baffles me that people have to be pretty much be married to get dependent facilities though.

No they don't. Not even close to being the case. You just have to have been living together for 2 years.

 

[BluePenguin]

Interesting, that is helpful to know actually

 

[Journeyman]

No they don't. Not even close to being the case. You just have to have been living together for 2 years.

Yeah, that's been the case since SWT lost a court case in the nineties, for refusing travel perks to a lesbian partner.

 

[BluePenguin]

I only mentioned it because I’m friends with a train driver whose partner complained about the price of train tickets once. I was surprised he didn’t get free travel and he told they would need to be married first to get it. I never thought anything of it at the time. I might send him a message tonight...

 

[Oxfordblues]

I was very lucky to retire with a Western Region status pass (second class), plus the 20 annual boxes for use elsewhere, not to mention a generously BRASS-infused pension. Mind you, I often had to work 12-hour nights and plenty of rest days worked to make a living when we were raising a family. And even now I can't afford to run a car. So I think it's a justifiable perk and I often act as an "unpaid steward" when travelling, such as clearing away other passengers' rubbish!

 

[LAX54]

I have had BR travel facilities for over 40 years and can assure you that they are not taxable.

They are indeed taxable. think it is valued at about £600 per year, when you get to 60, you pay a lump sum to the HMRC and then after that, there is no tax. (if you have not paid, think the P11D tells you, and they find out, you will no doubt get a bill ! )

As for Network Rail staff (Ex BR) getting travel, as the years go by, it gets cheaper for NR, as we all die off, til it gets to the point where it is zero.

At the time of privatisation, the Government deemed that Railtrack was a 'Non Railway Orientated Company' and thus no requirement for any type of travel facility, they even tried to take it off BR staff, but the Unions stopped that !
Which I suppose is why Railtrack and now Network Rail are classed as 'Engineering' Companies.

 

[scrapy]

Would a guard / TM ever get into hot water for giving staff a free ride (say if an RPI boarded) ? Or do they have absolute discretion on their own train?

Whilst a guard is generally in charge of the train they still have to act reasonably and be able to justify any decisions they make to management.

What action if any taken for giving a free ride would very much depend on circumstances, and would probably vary with some TOCs taking a different approach to others but ultimately if a manager did want to take disciplinary action they would in most circumstances be justified.

 

[Annetts key]

At the time of privatisation, the Government deemed that Railtrack was a 'Non Railway Orientated Company' and thus no requirement for any type of travel facility, they even tried to take it off BR staff, but the Unions stopped that !
Which I suppose is why Railtrack and now Network Rail are classed as 'Engineering' Companies.

Although Network Rail don’t run any passenger services, they do now run various engineering trains.