Cycle to Work - Can you use more than 1?

[doyler78]

Halfords bike to work people can order any standard bike from Wiggle (but not sale items or special offers). I've got a Focus Mares Cross on order which should arrive in the next couple of weeks. In our scheme you also get 17% of the bikes worth in Halfords vouchers to spend at the same time on equipment. I've got all the stuff I need really so I'll be stocking up on consumeables (spare chains , cassettes etc) for the Focus and the rest of the fleet.

Congrats on the purchase.

Can you confirm what value Halfords have put on the bike. On Wiggle it is £699.99. If Halford's charge anything more than that then anyone looking to get a Focus Cayo would not be able to as it is valued at £999 and as most schemes are limited to £1000. If Halfords are adding premiums then this amount would be exceeded.

The 17% voucher sounds a good deal however without knowing the details of your scheme I would hazard a guess that the employer is passing on 17% of the 17.5% they have saved on VAT which they can reclaim Any good employer would pass this full saving on anyway so if it is then they are merely just acting in the spirit of the scheme and not seeking to make a quick buck out the scheme themselves.

 

[PeteB99]

£700 - You can I think only apply for vouchers in whole numbers of pounds so I guess I'm donating 1p to Halfords.

I hope they spend it wisely.

 

[doyler78]

£700 - You can I think only apply for vouchers in whole numbers of pounds so I guess I'm donating 1p to Halfords.

I hope they spend it wisely.

- Now that I like as that would mean that anyone could get the Focus Cayo through Halfords on cycle to work.

 

[PeteB99]

- Now that I like as that would mean that anyone could get the Focus Cayo through Halfords on cycle to work.

If you want to check out the price of a bike there's a Halfords Bike to work helpline number 08700 660 511 - ring that - say you're in a Halfords run bike to work scheme and they should be able to give you a quote.

Good luck

 

[OnYourBike]

Bike Choice

I work currently for a company who provide the cycle to work initiative mainly for government departments. We currently provide the scheme free of charge to businesses and I have a lot of experience at getting round the red tape and also providing tenders. If anybody has any specific questions regarding the scheme I would be happy to help. With regards to Halfords I believe they can source bikes that they dont currently stock and Cyclescheme have large numbers of Partners across the country so you should be able to get the bike you want. As a business we are happy to share schemes with other providors it makes sense to give people a complete market option however a company does need to check the contracts as in a lot of cases there are 'exclusivity' terms put in place.

Hope this helps.

Chris

 

[grhm]

At the end and only then the employer can do with the asset whatever they wish however if they are to dispose of it then to comply with the rules of the scheme they should really get 3 quotes as to the current value of the bike
and sell at the average cost however most don't bother with this estimating disposal to be between 2.5-5%. They can sell this to any person or organisation they wish to however the expectation would be that the employee who sacraficed their salary to make payments for it would be given the option to buy it however this as I said before is not a right nor can the employee be forced to buy it at the end. Any company that didn't sell to the employee wouldn't get any takers after they shafted the first set of employees so not in their interests let alone the morale issues of not selling.

At my company, we've a Halford Cycle to Work scheme in place - but you can only opt-in during Novemeber (ties in with the window to "pick your flexible benefits for the year").

It's been running for 3 years now and a number of coleagues have bought bikes. Last november, one was asked to choose between paying £25 to buy the bike (original list price was £600+) or to pay a £60 admin fee to cover collecting the bike. He opted to keep it for £25.

So despite the T's+C's looking like the employer could do what they like with the bike at the end and the employee having no right to it - most employers won't want to deal with loads of second hand bikes.

 

[doyler78]

I suggest you look more closely at the contract between your employer and Halfords. It is clear that Halford's do not buy the bikes therefore they cannot dictate rules of disposal as they have no right to do so. What probably is in the contract are rules about the disposal will be handled at the end of the scheme and which the employer is happy to sign up to ease any perceived administrative burden in disposing of the bike should the employee decide not to buy however I doubt that this clause within the contract could be used by Halford's to insist on a disposal in the manner defined should the employer decide that they wish to retain the bike or dispose of themselves. Its more likely to be if the employer wishes us to handle disposal this is how we will handle it.

The bike is the employer's assest (see below)* and Halford's merely administer, and possibly promote, the scheme on the employers behalf - nothing more or less.

*(unless they have some sort of finance lease in place which means they have a finance house buy the bikes and this I can't see being the case for Halford's as this would require them to be regulated to carry out that business. Reasons why an Employer may want to operate this way are 1) cost of funding the scheme may be too much for some ie 200 people looking £1000 bikes is a significant immediate outlay 2) want to try and avoid some perceived potential legal issues which arise from them being the owner of the bike)

Of course that could all be rubbish as I don't have Halford's contracts here however I did have Cyclescheme's a one stage and it had similiar sounding clause which basically went something like at the end of the lease period the employer may sell the equipment at fair market value or alternatively the employer can transfer ownership to Cycle scheme who will handle the sale to the employee or the disposal.

The answer therefore is that your organisation has expressly allowed a facilitator to treat its employees in the manner you describe.

Sorry for that rather long winded response however I think people get confused between the rules for tax exemption and the rules under which the organisation permits their scheme to run or the rules of any facilitator whom they choose to use. These are not the same things.