Paying expenses

In general, any reasonable expense incurred as part of volunteering with your groups activities should be reimbursed. This includes but is not limited to:

• day to day expenditure incurred in running the weekly section meetings,
• Programme costs,
• administration costs such as postage, phone calls and stationery,
• Adult training.

If feasible you should also consider reimbursing or contributing towards:

• travel, including to and from your meeting place,
• key uniform items (shirt, trousers or skirt & belt)  

Some expenses will be necessary and have a set cost, such as uniform and stationery. However, it may be worth considering buying these items centrally and distributing them to volunteers if possible.

For expenses such as meals and refreshments on group outings and activities, it may be useful to set a limit. Many organisations do this so it’s worth checking to see what others in your area do.

In all cases, it’s important to ensure that the adults in your group are aware of the rules about expenses to insure they don’t incur unnecessary costs

The process of reimbursing expenses should be based on a single, simple principle only reimburse actual out-of-pocket expenses. This means your that your team need to submit receipts that show what they have had to spend as a volunteer that they otherwise wouldn’t have.

1. Be clear about what expenses will and won’t be reimbursed.
2. Be clear about limits on the amount that can be claimed for expenses such as refreshments.
3. Try to reimburse expenses as soon as possible.
4. Try and reimburse by bank transfer rather than by cheque as this can often be inconvenient
5. and delay payment.
6. It’s okay to provide expenses payments in advance, as long as receipts are provided once the money has been spent and any remainder is returned (this can be particularly helpful for volunteers with a low income who may find it difficult to cover expenses upfront.)
7. Develop a simple expense claim form, (a sample can be found at the bottom of this page)

Some people may feel that they do not need or even should not be offered expenses payments. However, ensuring everyone claims expenses helps your group to determine the full cost of running your group over the year. This will help in forecasting and budgets and applying for any funding. If a member of your team really doesn’t want to have their expenses reimbursed it is possible to set up a scheme whereby they donate these unclaimed expenses back to the group or organisation along with gift aid  

Some organisations try to avoid problems by referring to payments to volunteers as ‘honoraria’, a payment that is given in return for professional services that are provided without charge.

However, an honorarium is usually an unexpected, one-off payment made as an expression of thanks. Where an honorarium is paid regularly or expected, then it will usually count as earnings and is therefore taxable.

If a member of your group has to buy an Internet connection to carry out their role, that’s clearly an expense and can be reimbursed. However, if they already have a connection and don’t have to pay any additional costs there is nothing to reimburse. If usage is itemised it can be reimbursed.

If a member of your group already has a phone calling plan and uses some of the included minutes in the course of their volunteering, but doesn’t exceed those minutes, the volunteer has incurred no additional expense as a result of their volunteering so there is nothing to reimburse. If the included minutes are exceeded and an additional cost is incurred by the volunteer, again only costs that are clearly a result of the volunteering should be reimbursed. So if the cost of the calls is itemised it can be reimbursed, but if they aren’t itemised it’s not possible to show that it was the calls related to the volunteering that took the volunteer over their included minutes.

It is reasonable to ask people to travel by the cheapest form of public transport. If they are using an Oyster Card or similar pre-pay travel card, they will need to request a receipt from a travel centre or print the details via an online system if available.

You should bear in mind that it may sometimes be necessary for members of your group to use taxis, particularly if they have a disability or work or need to transport equipment.

As a guide the HMRC sets approved mileage allowance payment rates for the reimbursement of driving expenses. These are the maximum allowable payments free of tax and national insurance contributions.

As of 17 December 2017, this is:
For the first 10,000 miles (16,090km), per year, cars and vans are eligible for 45p per mile. From there, travel is at a rate of 25p per mile. For motorcycles and bikes, the rates are the same for all travel — it's always 24p for motorcycles and 20p for bicycles.

These approved rates do not place an obligation on a group to reimburse expenses at those rates. They are simply the amount a volunteer can be reimbursed before the payments are liable for tax.

HMRC also states that volunteers can also claim an additional 5p per mile for each passenger they carry in relation to their volunteering role. Again, your group is under no obligation to make this payment.

When setting your expenses rates, you should consider using the county expense rates as a guide. Whilst your group is not required to use these rates; we recommend that your group’s expense rate should not be higher than the published county rates. Any rates used should be agreed by your group executive committee.