Troubling economic conditions make a travel and subsistence provision more important than ever.

David Smith, director at Recruitment Process Management Software Solutions provider Zeel Solutions, told Recruiter that smaller recruiters that do not have the resources to use travel and subsistence are coming up against recruiters that are able to use extra revenues incurred to further their business.

Travel and Subsistence is a HM Revenue & Customs tax and national insurance saving solution, which allows employees to benefit from specific tax and national insurance contributions (NIC) exemptions against travel and subsistence cost involved with travelling to a temporary place of work.

T&S allowances work through a salary sacrifice scheme which cuts gross pay and then gives the worker a non taxable allowance back, thus increasing their net pay.
 

Smith says: “The cost savings that you make can mount up to thousands of pounds. You are also to allowed to charge the work with an administation fee to process this payment. Because you are giving them this benefit, their net pay is going to be higher.”

Liz Longman, UK director at TEAM, told Recruiter that travel & subsistence was not commonplace among smaller recruiters: “We can only speak for small to medium-size agencies and when TEAM has looked at this in the past it is clearly not a practice that is prevalent among our members. Our members have always competed on quality of service and do not rely on such schemes to attract clients and candidates.”