Cycle to Work Scheme

[Stu Smith]

I work for a International Logistics company who promote how hard they work to keep there Carbon Footprint as low as possible, and how much money they invest in new technology to improve emissions on the vehicles.

When I enquired about them joining one of the cycle to work schemes, firstly with my depot manager he gave me the contact for the guy who would say yes are no.But said do not hold your breath.

Contacted him and the reply was No, my next question was why? Reply :-
There are that many employees in this country alone, if all the people who cycle to work took up the Cycle to work scheme it would cost money to organise and administrate..

Caring sharing company my arse..

 

[helston90]

Meh, I had a similar thing from my place of work- our internal website still says it'll be reviewed soon.
In the end I gave up waiting and got an interest free credit card (15 months) and bought last years model (which will very soon be the 2015 ones) at 33% off, make the monthly payments as planned, all good.
This only works if you're happy with last years model but there is more money to be save than through the C2W scheme, plus you own the bike sooner.

 

[Dave 123]

Same here too- my boss can't be arsed with the paper work.

 

[bikingdad90]

Hi Stu,

The problem with the C2W set up is that say you have a workforce of 10,000 and take up was 10%, you would have 1,000 employees on the scheme and if each spent the maximum allowed it would cost the company £1 million pounds initially which is a big ask, There are finance providers available who would provide the funds but it often means they take a cut of the employees saving so it is cost neutral to the employer. There is also the admin factor to consider.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Hi Stu,

The problem with the C2W set up is that say you have a workforce of 10,000 and take up was 10%, you would have 1,000 employees on the scheme and if each spent the maximum allowed it would cost the company £1 million pounds initially which is a big ask, There are finance providers available who would provide the funds but it often means they take a cut of the employees saving so it is cost neutral to the employer. There is also the admin factor to consider.

There are ways around this. The company limits the number of people who can join the scheme each year, first come first served. Then they just buy a couple of cheap bikes and make them available for people to borrow

 

[Stu Smith]

Hi Stu,

The problem with the C2W set up is that say you have a workforce of 10,000 and take up was 10%, you would have 1,000 employees on the scheme and if each spent the maximum allowed it would cost the company £1 million pounds initially which is a big ask, There are finance providers available who would provide the funds but it often means they take a cut of the employees saving so it is cost neutral to the employer. There is also the admin factor to consider.

Hi Chris,
I understand exactly were you are coming from. But I think the guy is exaggerating the amount of employees who would take this up, the depot I'm based at, I would estimate at tops 70 employees and only I cycle.. 10 other depots in this country,so the figures would not be that large.
This does not in my mind promote one of the company slogans "I can do"

Meh, I had a similar thing from my place of work- our internal website still says it'll be reviewed soon.
In the end I gave up waiting and got an interest free credit card (15 months) and bought last years model (which will very soon be the 2015 ones) at 33% off, make the monthly payments as planned, all good.
This only works if you're happy with last years model but there is more money to be save than through the C2W scheme, plus you own the bike sooner.

Thanks Helston I'm certainly going to have a look at this route.This had never crossed my mind.

 

[boydj]

You could point out that the employer saves on NI payments which are calculated on the employee's salary after the deduction to pay for the bike. This should more than cover the admin involved.

 

[Uddy Puffer]

How exactly does the Scheme work - for employers, administrators and bike shops?

I know what's in it for me as an employee but what does an employer actually get out of it? The kudos and warm glow inside of reducing the carbon footprint of its workforce? I assume the administrators such as Cyclescheme, etc get a slice somewhere but I'm also intrigued by the bike shops. Not absolutely certain but I think I overheard someone in an independent bike shop saying to a customer that they couldn't discount a bike if it was getting purchased on the scheme. Why not? Doesn't the bike shop get the amount agreed as purchase price, the same as if it was paid in cash or credit card? Or do they have to forego a slice to sell the bike through the scheme?

Lots of questions but I'm about to start the process of getting a bike through the scheme and wanted to know how it works beforehand.

Ta

 

[vickster]

Most schemes take around 10% off the retailer. Either comes off their margin or gets added as a surcharge for you to pay, e.g. Ribble. Planet X whose margins are lower

 

[Milkfloat]

Your company get a warm glow, a little bit of hassle but also some cash (national insurance). Your company may farm out a lot of the logistics to a third party (like CycleScheme). They will take their approx 10% cut from the retailer. So the retailer will lose out, but are still getting a sale. Sometimes a retailer won't have an issue with this on sale bikes, but others will ask for an admin fee, so it plays to shop around. The retailer is not totally hard done by this as I expect most people on a C2W scheme pay RRP with their voucher. If you are paying cash you normally expect 10-15% off RRP anyway, this is either cash or goods.