Free Travel For TFL Family, Friends & Flatmates Under Fire

By · February 2, 2011 at 10:10 am · 10 Comments · Latest News · Report an error ·

Boris Johnson faced challenges at City Hall yesterday over the TFL employee perk that extends free travel across the network to a family member or nominated partner.

The Evening Standard reports that the cost of supporting these plus-one freebies potentially runs to £30m, without factoring in people working for Tube Lines and the bus companies. And we’re not surprised. Who in their right mind would opt not to take up free travel for their nearest and/or dearest, when the cost of a monthly 1-4 Travelcard has pushed through £150?

TFL staff’s entitlement to free travel is not in question but the extension of the employee reward to a ‘nominated partner’ who must merely live at the same address, perhaps seems overly generous, although this clearly covers live-in partners who wouldn’t qualify as ‘family’ as well as flatmates. Scrapping the benefit may well redirect much needed funds back to TFL but would it be worth the inevitable disgruntlement of the workforce and likely strike action that would follow? Let us know in the comments.

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  • Cat

    I will hold up my hands and say I’m biased as the spouse of a bus driver, but still I say ‘no’. This is ridiculous logic. TFL is not spending £30m on this perk. It is just not receiving it, which is entirely different. There is a massive logic gap to say that those who receive this perk would use the system an identical amount if they have to pay.

    Also, why TFL alone be targetted about perks? My employer offers health insurance which covers my spouse. Should this go too?

    It feels like this is picked on as an emotive subject because the ticket prices are high and the majority of Londoners have to pay them. However, scrapping this perk will not lower ticket prices for the majority, nor provide enough cash to improve services significantly, it will just be another thorn in the side of the the employees of the PRIVATE companies contracted to TFL. Essentially this whole subject is a ruse to deflect attention from the real issues of high ticket prices and rush-hour overcrowding.

    • http://twitter.com/Samvjones Sam Jones

      @Cat I think it should be pointed out that it is incorrect to state that TFL is not paying for this perk, as a company it most certainly is paying for it. Any employee benefit is a cost to the company, it is lost revenue and has to be factored into the running costs of the company. I think it is important that nothing you get from your employer is “free” generally to either party i.e they have to pay the health insurance and you have to pay tax on that benefit as a benefit in kind. I think it is also key that you say “spouse” your company would not pay for cover of a flatmate or brother/sister etc. Also your employer I suspect is not subsidised by the tax payer, so anything benefits it gives to you is approved by the company owner/shareholders. Many private companies trim staff benefits when times are tough, it is TFL’s responsibility to cut back it’s costs and make savings just as every area of public expenditure should be. You are right in saying it alone won’t make a difference but as part of overall savings it all helps.

      • TQ

        Sam, I think you’re looking at this the wrong way. Cutting this won’t save £30m (a sum presumably derived by multiplying the cost of an annual zone 1-6 travel card by the number of employees). Instead cutting this benefit should be viewed as an opportunity to increase revenue by an amount, which, is going to be consideably less than £30m. To put this in context, TfL alone spent over £1bn last year on salaries.

        Also funny how the Standard hasn’t latched on to the other groups who get free travel, such as the police, pensioners, and kids.

        (yes, I do work for TfL. Savings have to be made, but I don’t think giving us a effective pay cut is the way to start)

  • http://twitter.com/bravenewmalden Kevin Mills

    Is this a poll? I vote for retention of the perk. I bet plenty of journos get free travel. And as Cat said, the £30m is an entirely notional amount.

  • http://twitter.com/bravenewmalden Kevin Mills

    Is this a poll? I vote for retention of the perk. I bet plenty of journos get free travel. And as Cat said, the £30m is an entirely notional amount.

  • Alisa

    Every work place has it’s own benefits to encourage employees to do a good job and not work elsewhere. In London, we already have a lower than average standard of living in terms of developed western countries. I feel that of course they should keep this perk. Just like airline staff get free/discounted fares for their families. John Lewis/Waitrose staff get discounted groceries. I’m sure the list goes on. At my last place of work there were literally no perks and in the end I left my position feeling undervalued and overworked!

  • Dave H

    This £30 million figure is, I believe, based on the assumption that every non-TfL employee who receives this ‘perk’ would otherwise be purchasing an annual Zone 1-6 travelcard. This is a spectacularly unrealistic scenario, and so the £30 million figure that is being waved around is disingenuous headline-seeking nonsense, to say the least.

    Of course, the debate about whether family/flatmates should be entitled to this ‘perk’ is a valid one, but let’s not fool ourselves that scrapping it would produce an extra £30 million for TfL. That’s simply not realistic.

  • http://twitter.com/PoliticlCustard Oliver Shykles

    I say leave it as it is. Many people don’t subscribe to practices such as marriage or civil partnerships and should not be penalised for doing so.

    Like others here I suspect that 30m figure is vastly exaggerated.

  • Adrienne

    I used to work for TfL. I never took up the option of the second travelcard. I suspect any proper research would prove that not every one of those potential second travelcards has even been issued in the first place.

  • Kari

    My partner is a bus driver and therefore I get this ‘perk’, to be perfectly honest I very rarely use the travelcard and if it wasn’t a perk I would never go out and buy it so it really doesn’t matter. I think you’ll find that a lot of people who have the second travelcard rarley use it and it’s not as if you would spend your day jumping on and off buses or trains because you don’t pay for it. Saying that you’ll find school kids do, do this! So I very much doubt that it would generate £30m.

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