Subsistence existence

All this week I'm on a IT-type course in Eton, Berkshire, which necessitated finding a hotel to stay at for the duration. Jane's employers have a special department for this process. You ring them up and say "I want a room in X for Y days" and (after asking you to talk in real numbers and not use poncey variables) they go away and find a room for you, using their considerable centralised buying power and freeing you to get on with the work you're actually being paid to do.

My employers, whilst of similar size to Jane's, aren't quite so enlightened. If you're away from home for work you have to find your own accommodation, and if you want reimbursement you have to find it for less than the amount stated in the national "Subsistence Policy" document.

At the time of writing this amount was £55, and it has been since around the time decimal coinage was brought in.

You'd struggle to find a hotel for £55 a night anywhere these days, especially in this neck of the woods. But I still had to waste a morning looking for hotels that didn't exist, until being allowed to get special clearance to book a place that, while still the cheapest in the area, was still £20 more than the limit.

And it doesn't have a car park, the nearest one being an NCP which charges another £15 pounds a night, bringing the grand total up to a slightly more expensive £90 a night. All of which I'm allowed to claim back.

Of course, if the subsistence was about £90 in the first place I would have probably been able to find a place with a car park included, and not wasted a salaried morning looking for it. Ho hum.

Still, I might have missed the chance to stay in the wonderful Travelodge Windsor Central, in all it's spartan MDF and plain white walled glory.



If you're a British taxpayer, you'll be pleased to know that your taxes aren't being wasted on giving public sector employees like me frivolities such as paintings to look at when they're billeted away from home!