Staff expenses

Council employees may have to travel outside Northern Ireland as part of their job. There are several reasons for this, including:

Training and development - For example, staff may attend events, such as training courses and professional conferences, which are not available in Northern Ireland. This represents 32.93% of the net cost.

Improving our services - Employees may visit other councils or businesses, engage in national professional networks or attend seminars and conferences which are not available in Northern Ireland. This represents 37.26% of the net cost.

Promoting Belfast - Employees may attend trade fairs and best in field awards which showcase what the council does and what Belfast has to offer. This represents 29.81% of the net cost.

Costs recharged to customers - Our employees also travel on business which is rechargeable to customers and provides income to the council. There was no net cost to the council for this travel.

You'll find information about our employee travel details, broken down into each of these four categories, for April 2011 to March 2012 here.

Download staff expenses 2011-2012 (Excel - 167KB)

We have also provided details about:

Department - the department where the employee works
Job title and staff number - the employee's job title and their staff number
Date of event - the date when the conference, seminar or visit took place
Description of event - a brief description of the conference, seminar or visit
Event location - where the event took place, for example, Great Britain (GB), Republic of Ireland (ROI), Europe or Rest of World (ROW)
Travel - this includes all the travel costs associated with attending the event, for example, public transport and taxi costs and motor mileage allowances
Accommodation and subsistence - this includes hotel and meal costs
Gross cost - this is the total cost before any deductions are made for funding received from external bodies
Percentage actual funding - this represents the percentage of any external funding received, for example, EU funding or charges to customers
Funding body - this is the organisation which provided the external funding
Net cost - this is the cost to the council after deducting any funding received from external bodies.

All payments to employees comply with council policies and procedures.

We pay travel, accommodation and fees directly to the provider and reimburse other costs to our employees on an actual cost basis, that is, only when they provide receipts for valid expenditure.

Previous expenses

Download staff expenses 2010 - 2011 (Excel - 168KB)
Download staff expenses 2009 - 2010 (Excel - 205KB)
Download staff expenses 2008 - 2009 (Excel - 285KB