EIM32092 - Travel expenses: travel for necessary attendance: definitions: temporary workplace: example

An employee lives in Knaresborough and has a part-time employment working two days a week in Harrogate as a telephonist for an insurance company. He is asked to spend one of his two working days covering for a colleague at a branch in Ripon for a period of 32 months. No deduction is due for the cost of travelling between his home and Ripon or between his home and Harrogate.

Harrogate remains his permanent workplace. He attends it regularly to perform the duties of his employment and that attendance is not to perform a task of limited duration or for a temporary purpose, see EIM32065.

Ripon is capable of being a temporary workplace because his attendance is for a limited duration, see EIM32075. However, Ripon is excluded from being a temporary workplace by the further rule explained in EIM32080. His attendance is in the course of a period of continuous work (he works there for 40% or more of his working time) and it is known from the outset that the period will exceed 24 months. So Ripon is treated as a permanent workplace.

This example shows that the percentage of working time at a workplace is determined by reference to the employee’s actual working time and not by reference to a notional amount of working time appropriate to a full-time worker.