Cycle to Work Scheme

How Cycle Scheme Works

In a nutshell, your employer must be enrolled with Cycle Scheme and must be accepting applications for new packages - if your employer isn’t enrolled you can give them a nudge over on the Cycle Scheme website. Cycle Scheme is a fantastic programme which allows employers to provide cycles to their employees for commuting to work or for improving the general wellbeing of their employees.

You pay for your package through directly from your monthly salary over twelve months, however, the deduction is made from your gross salary, so you make income tax and national insurance savings (32% standard rate, 42% higher rate).

Technically, you are hiring the package from your employer for the first year and you can then opt to take ownership of the bike thereafter however there is a fee (see table below) to do so however you can get around this by waiting for a further 36 months (during this time you are still hiring the bike fee-free) after which ownership can be transferred to you at no extra cost.

Possible Savings

Cost of Package	Basic Rate Tax Payer	Higher Rate Tax Payer
£500 (12 Months)	£35.00	£85.00
£500 (48 Months)	£125.00	£175.00
£1,000 (12 Months)	£70.00	£170.00
£1,000 (48 Months)	£250.00	£350.00

The figures in brackets represent the end of hire period opted for.

How these approximate savings are achieved can be found here using the Cycle Scheme Saving Calculator

End of Hire

The ‘End of Hire’ payment follows advice issued by HMRC and is the only meh bit of the whole process. Basically, you’ll pay either 3% or 7% of the packages original value to Cycle Scheme for use of the package over the next three years which is refundable should you decide you no longer want to keep the package - Cycle Scheme have a great little video over on Vimeo which explains all this.

Age of Cycle	Original Price (<£500)	Original Price (>£500)
12 Months	18%	25%
18 Months	16%	21%
24 Months	13%	17%
36 Months	8%	12%
48 Months	3%	7%

Enrolling in a Cycle Scheme

Getting a new bike with Cycle Scheme is straightforward once your employer gives you the head nod to go ahead.

1. If required, we'll write you a quote for a new bike and any optional accessories to create a package which you can enter the details of these on to the Cycle Scheme website.
2. They’ll do some number crunching and check with your employer - this can take between a week and a month depending on your employer.
3. After all the boxes are checked they’ll issue you with a voucher along with your hire agreement which you can send to us in exchange for a brand-new bike and accessories if selected as part of your package.
4. Once you have your package your salary sacrifice and Hire Agreement begins and for the next 12 months, you’ll pay a set amount from your salary each month in exchange for the hire of your package from your employer.

Limitations

Sadly, we can only write quotes or accept vouchers for full-price bikes, the reason being that we pay the various Cycle Scheme a significant commission for every voucher we accept which makes it impossible to both provide a discounted cycle on a cycle scheme.

If there is a bike you are really interested in which is on sale, then please get in touch as depending on the discounts involved we can possibly work something out for you.

Also, we're unable to accept vouchers as payment for items such as indoor trainers, computers or anything race or performance orientated such a new wheelset or new forks - these are terms set out by the voucher issuers rather than by us so we aren't able to make any exceptions on this we're sorry to say.

Green Commute Initiative (GCI)

We're now able to accept vouchers from the Green Commute Initiative (GCI), because GCI is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority they are able to operate a bike for work scheme with values in excess of £1,000.

This is particularly handy if you're looking into purchasing an electric bike with your cycle to work voucher.

To find out more visit greencommuteinitiative.uk for more information.