Policy overview
We promote sound financial management strategies to:
- maintain monetary and financial stability
- ensure we run the organisation in a financially efficient manner
The work we do requires active community engagement. This means we may expect employees to travel or host meetings and therefore incur additional expenditure whilst understaking the duties of their job.
This policy sets out the principles and rules for claiming travel and other expenses incurred on our business to ensure that employees are not placed at a financial disadvantage when working for the Council, nor gaining a financial advantage from their work
Therefore it is important that anyone needing to incur and/or approve expense can understand:
- which claims are permitted
- what steps to take to ensure reimbursement
This policy aims to:
- ensure a consistent approach for all business travel, accommodation and use of vehicles in connection with the delivery of our services
- provide business travel and accommodatiob options
- state our approach to making occupational road risk
state our approach to managing occupational road risk
Principles
We may require employees to travel on council business. On occasions, they may require overnight accommodation. Therefore, it is necessary for us to:
- ensure spending on business travel and accommodation is operationally and economically efficient
- ensure that employees undertaking business travel do so safely and take the most appropriate and sustainable method of transport, co-ordinating travel, where possible to keep the number of separate car journeys to an absolute minimum
- ensure that the Council safeguards against fraud and excessive spending on expenses
Whilst incurring and claiming expenses, employees must:
- adopt a responsible and pro-active attitude to reduce risks and costs related to travel
- balance the benefits of any journey with associated time and cost. Employees must also consider alternatives such as conference calls, video conference, including MS Teams
- manage bookings appropriately and avoid cancellations and late fees
When submitting expenses to claim reimbursement, employees must:
- obtain prior approval for expenses
- ensure that expenses are claimed under the correct expense type. NB. When claiming Home Equipment Expenses refer to Overtime/Variable Pay on Business World
- submit expenses on time to ensure these can be reviewed and approved by the required Expenses deadline
- submit claims no more than 3 months after the expenditure has incurred. Retrospective claims over three months old will not be reimbursed (except under exceptional circumstances such as long-term sickness and with approval from Head of Service or above)
- Receipts for claimable expenses must either be uploaded to Business World at the same time as the claim or if claiming via a paper form be shown to the approving manager (refer to Appendix 1 VAT Receipt – Non-VAT Receipt), otherwise your claim will be rejected
- Receipts must be retained for a period of 6 years after the end of the tax year to which they relate to (Financial payments – Lincolnshire County Council).
Where a claim that has been submitted and approved results in an overpayment the Council will always attempt to recover this as quickly as possible as per the Overpayment recovery process – Purpose - Lincolnshire County Council
Managers must:
- pre-approve travel and accommodation requests with employees before they make arrangements and ensure the use of the most cost-effective means.
- ensure that booked travel complies with all relevant procedures
- approve requests and arrangements on time
- ensure that expenses are accurate, a valid receipt is attached to the claim and they comply with the policy (refer to Appendix 1 VAT Receipt – Non-VAT Receipt)
