Client site parking and travel time question

[Spacecadet]

Sorry, does not compute. Your rate is for your working time (or your deliverables, ideally), not your time spent getting there and back again; that's your problem. By all means ask for a rate rise, or an hours reduction, but don't be at all surprised if all you get is a hollow laugh. Your travel arrangements aren't their concern.

Rubbish, if it costs me in time and money to the client site then the client pays by means of a higher day rate otherwise I go elsewhere and they can get someone else in who lives closer. Alternatively I can work from home and deliver from there but most clients prefer me to be onsite for most/all the week.

[malvolio]

Rubbish, if it costs me in time and money to the client site then the client pays by means of a higher day rate otherwise I go elsewhere and they can get someone else in who lives closer. Alternatively I can work from home and deliver from there but most clients prefer me to be onsite for most/all the week.

Right, well, good luck with that approach. It wouldn't impress me, for example, but they're your client.

[craig1]

Rubbish, if it costs me in time and money to the client site then the client pays by means of a higher day rate otherwise I go elsewhere and they can get someone else in who lives closer. Alternatively I can work from home and deliver from there but most clients prefer me to be onsite for most/all the week.

I agree with that in many ways. Current contract is right at the maximum edge of my commute but the client has other sites nearby that would add about 30 minutes to an hour each way commute. My contract schedule specifically states that any site apart from the named HQ gets billed at mileage from my company's home address, regardless of my set-off destination; I clarified this with them in writing that this means that even if I'm at HQ and I'm asked to go to a nearby site that I can, at my absolute discretion, bill them for a return journey from my home address. I wouldn't be able to pass it off as expenses but it would be a nice extra £80-£100 per day onto my rate. That has so far encouraged them not to mess me about by sending me to other sites on random whims as they seem to do with other contractors here.

The negotiated rate I'm on takes into account all travelling and commuting, any significant negative change to that imposed by the client would have me asking them to fix it, compensate me appropriately or agree to part company.

[Sockpuppet]

Would you ask for a rate increase if the highways agy decided to dig up a road for a few months and added the same to your journey?

[kingcook]

Exercise your right to work from your office (i.e. home). (assuming there's nothing in your contract stopping you from doing this!)

[craig1]

Would you ask for a rate increase if the highways agy decided to dig up a road for a few months and added the same to your journey?

That's not the client's fault though. It's only if the client negatively changes my commute time that I'd look to renegotiate.

[d000hg]

Would you ask for a rate increase if the highways agy decided to dig up a road for a few months and added the same to your journey?

But in this case the client is deliberately making it hard, it's their choice not an unfortunate event they have no control over.

Work from home sounds reasonable.

[northernladuk]

Unless HMRC argue that the shuttle bus is an employee benefit and if you use it you are inside IR35

How on earth can a shuttle bus from a contractor only car park be an employee benefit?? A bit of common sense still needs to be applied to these situations. If anything it further adds to the IR35 argument because the bus is for contractors not permies.

[Spacecadet]

Right, well, good luck with that approach. It wouldn't impress me, for example, but they're your client.

I'm not trying to impress the client, its a fact of life that travelling takes time and money. The further away a client is the more I have to charge them. I have to spend extra on petrol and hotel or digs and potentially lose 2 evenings a week due travelling as well as putting up with the inconvience.
I'm running a business and if my costs go up then so do my prices!

As I said, if the client isn't willing to pay then so be it, they can get someone else.

[JamJarST]

How on earth can a shuttle bus from a contractor only car park be an employee benefit?? A bit of common sense still needs to be applied to these situations. If anything it further adds to the IR35 argument because the bus is for contractors not permies.

I was being a bit tongue in cheek NL. I did read it that it was a free shuttle bus for employees per the OP's original post.