The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has published revised motor travel and subsistence rates for civil servants. Unions and management agreed the new rates following last December's arbitration hearing on a new system to calculate rates for officers  required to undertake travel in the course of their duties.

The new rates will apply from 1st April, the first time there has been an increase in the motor travel rates since they were cut by 25% in 2010 (changes to the home subsistence rates were agreed in 2015), and the first time the calculating formula has been revised since 2005.

The new formula uses four distance bands of motor travel rates (the current formula uses just two bands), and these provide a different rate-per-kilometre based on the overhead costs of running a car. The overhead costs formula takes account of the following:

• A replacement rate that assumes that an officer’s car is replaced every four years
• Insurance costs
• Car costs calculated with reference to the top 10 best-selling cars
• Car tax costs based on the C02 emissions of the top 10 best-selling cars
• Servicing and repair costs based on the figures given in the AA Cost of Motoring report each year
• Fuel costs.