Midlothian council staff to get 35 per cent petrol allowance rise as carers forced to walk to work
| Published date | 29 June 2022 |
The decision came after health bosses revealed carers in the county were being forced to ditch their cars and walk to appointments because of the cost of fuel.
A virtual meeting of Midlothian Council yesterday (TUE) heard that last year council staff claimed back 876,000 miles driven using their own cars - 530,000 of them were by health and social care workers.
Council leader Kelly Parry said she had been upset to hear at a meeting of Midlothian Integration Joint Board (IJB) earlier this month that care workers were unable to afford fuel.
At that meeting Midlothian's head of primary care and older people's services Grace Cowan said it had become too expensive for some workers to use their cars for work.
And she said carers faced more hardship because while their NHS colleagues had been given a temporary increase in their mileage allowance, those employed by the council had not.
NHS Scotland introduced a temporary four month rise in fuel allowances in April with a 5p increase from 56p a mile to 61p for the first 3,500 miles a year and 20p to 25p for all additional miles.
Ms Cowan said: "We have staff moving from using a car to get between service users and having to become walkers because of the cost of fuel for them.
"We have brought in some additional pool cars to try and alleviate pressures on staff but continue to see a pressure from people moving from driving to walking, people need longer between visits and we continue to monitor the situation."
At yesterday's council meeting Councillor Parry said: "I was upset to hear at the last IJB how some staff were struggling to get to work, struggling to get between care placements, which were then taking longer, some staff trying to do it by foot which is wholly unacceptable."
The council heard council workers were able to claim the HMRC advisory rate of 45p for the first 10,000 miles annually and 25p for additional miles annually.
The new temporary rate will match the NHS rise with workers able to claim 61p a mile for the first 3,500 miles and 25p for additional miles.
Council officers said that if it was assumed no employees claimed more than 3,500 miles a year, it would equate to an annual increase in reimbursements of £140,000.
And they said...
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