Car Allowance and Travel Reimbursement
Survey
There have been reports of productions breaking with normal working practices regarding Car Allowance and other vehicle payments. The BECTU Art Department Branch Committee are seeking as much data as possible to help support members when dealing with those productions.
Please fill the below survey in even if you've had no issues with getting car allowance.
With your data we can get a clearer picture of the scale of issue, and most importantly, find productions or studios that are acting inconsistently with members. You can fill in the form as many times as you like, in order to provide information from multiple jobs.
With your input we can prevent this backslide in working standards.
Notes regarding vehicle payments can be found under the questionnaire.
More Information about Vehicle Payments
About Car Allowance
Productions pay Car Allowance to crew members that use their car regularly to get to suppliers and locations.
Those roles can include Art Directors, Set Decorators, Buyers, Departmental Assistants and Trainees. For a complete list of roles that should typically expect Car Allowance please see the current Rate Card - https://www.bectuartdepartment.co.uk/rate-card-2024.
If you are working on a studio film them some of these roles may not need to travel and should not expect car allowance. If you are working on location, then more roles should expect to be paid Car Allowance. The following roles are generally considered to always need to travel for the purpose of hiring and sourcing: Supervising Art Director, Set Decorator, Production Buyer, Petty Cash Buyer.
How much?
The Rate Card currently lists £150 per week for Car Allowance. Some productions have negotiated a lower rate of £125.
Fule Receipts
In addition to Car Allowance, crew members should submit fuel receipts for reimbursement from production.
Deductions for Commuting
Some studios and productions do not deduct any amount from Fuel Receipt payments to account for commuting. Some productions have deducted 20% from all receipts, or receipts presented without a Mileage Log.
Other productions have deducted 20-30 miles per day. There are questions over the manner with which this is calculated however.
Mileage Logging
Certain productions have requested a mileage log to justify the petrol receipts. If 20% is already being deducted, then Bectu advises crew members that remind Production that this is time consuming and detracts time from required duties. If Production insists on a mileage log being kept, then there are apps which can be used to automatically log mileage. Recommendations from within the branch membership include MileIQ (www.mileiq.com) and Driversnote (www.driversnote.com) which are both available for iOS and Android.
Rental Cars
If Production is unwilling to provide a Car Allowance but require you to use a car for your required duties, then you should request a hire car.