manalishi:
Whats the situation if you are constantly parked at the companies yard as i am doing on a regular basis and a night out payment is refused on the basis that you can go home despite living much too far away to actually get home because of the great distances involved in so doing?
Most of the drivers at my new firm live considerable distances away as there isn’t a convenient pool of them living near the company premises and therefore have to sacrifice any kind of home /social life and not get any financial compensation for acting as an unpaid security guard for the truck.
This surely breeches right to family life human rights issues and I wonder if it could be pursued in any legal situation.I know ,don’t hold your breath…etc,but this issue is increasingly bugging me and I intend to get some kind of protest written.Can anyone suggest a way forward with this as I have form in this area i.e constant phone calls to elf n safety got some dubious practices solved a few years ago when queuing at Felixstowe container port where drivers had to risk being run down at the entry booths when taking documents to a distant processing area.I badgered the h&s folks for many months,along with two other drivers acting indipendently,and now you just turn up and stay in the cab until they deal with you in one fell swoop,so without wishing to sound to crusadery about things,it does pay to pursue stuff with tenacity where there is blatant injustice and I think unpaid nights out falls into this context and is despicable.
Trappist monks have a better lifestyle than trampers,it’s an evil that needs urgent attention would’nt you agree folks?
Your choice to live and work where you do and as you are not away from your normal place of work the company can’t legally pay you a tax free night out allowance.
How the [zb] does it breach Human Right’s? 
No one is holding a gun to your head or holding you hostage and preventing you leaving to go home. You can freely do a different job nearer where you live or move closer to where you work. It’s your choice to do what you do so you really don’t have any legal recourse.
we get £22 per night out. Any parking costs (and other expenses)are reimbursed in full in cash with the following weeks pay slip.
Nothing is said about vouchers.
I only live about 5 minutes from the yard, I have on occasion slept in the truck if ive got a silly o’clock start.That way I get a better sleep and dont disturb the wife and kids when I get up. Never tried to claim a n/out for it though because it was my decision.
I know theres a couple of lads who live further away than me and have been paid to stay in the yard but only on a rare occasion when they were taking a 9 hour break and an early start.
I used to work for a firm in Northamptonshire (2 hour drive home) and stayed in the yard most weeks, however he stopped paying me night outs there, just parked 10 mile up the road and ran back to yard next morning 
If you read the RHA document, night out money can only be paid if you’re away from home base.
I’ve been present when the HMRC come and do an inspection, it’s not a pretty sight, the first thing they ask for is tacho’s or worksheets to show where the driver stopped and check against wage records. If they don’t match up, the employer is fined and has to pay the tax that should have been deducted.
Also contra to popular belief on this forum, I asked at the time of an inspection if you can increase the night out money to more than the nationally agreed figure; they said yes, but you need to get written agreement (or a dispensation) from your local tax office to pay the increased amount. I tried to do this, and had no luck whatsoever.The government is short of money, so they need as much tax as possible - they are not going to agree to a larger night out amount than nationally agreed.
I was also told that if you paid more than the agreed figure, you have to pay tax and NIC’s on the WHOLE amount paid, not just the difference. This came from the horses mouth, as it were. (The 2 old birds that did the inspection did look like horses).
I know a few firms that paid drivers 5 nights out a week whether they had them or not to top their wages up, and come severely unstuck when the HMRC came knocking.
I only get £18 a night and that will be going down to £10 when i get taken on permanently.