110414- WLGA responds to TPA report into council mileage allowance payments
14 April 2011
Responding to today’s TPA report into local authority car mileage rates, Steve Thomas, WLGA Chief Executive said:
“The figures collected by the Taxpayers’ Alliance lack robustness and being months out of date do not reflect the specific situation in Wales in a number of key areas: -
1. There has been intense media coverage within Wales of the historic MOU agreement signed in 2011 between WLGA and the Wales TUC. Uniquely this allows for local negotiation to replace the old NJC rates with the recommended HMRC mileage rate of 40p per mile (which has now been increased to 45p as a result of the recent budget). Consequently the majority of authorities have either put in place or are in the process of negotiating a move to HMRC rates. This would also see the abolition of the essential user rate and casual user rate.
2. In large parts of Wales the highly rural nature of authorities and the sparsely populated make up of communities means that local government officers need to reach highly vulnerable people who require vital services such as social care, environmental health and education services. It is only right that if they are using their vehicles then they are reasonably recompensed. It is these same workers who have managed to reach cut off communities during the three recent bad winters and ensured an essential lifeline to council tax payers.
3. Given the current financial climate all local authorities have been reviewing all aspects of their travel including cars for business use. This has resulted in the introduction of pool cars for example and other travel related efficiency measures
4. As the representative body of local government in Wales, the WLGA moved to HMRC rates in 2009 and has made considerable efficiency savings on this and other travel related efficiency measures, including capping journey lengths for personal car use, promoting car sharing, greater use of public transport and introducing a new salary sacrifice leasing scheme paid for totally by employees to encourage “green car usage”