6. Hospitality
Hospitality, sometimes on a quite lavish scale, is common in the private sector. Hospitality can be defined as any food, drink, accommodation or entertainment provided either free of charge or heavily discounted.
You may at some time wish to offer or accept an offer of hospitality. Civil servants who come into contact with organisations who offer hospitality must behave differently and with more care.
Accepting offers of hospitality
Principles
- The normal place for conducting official business is your office or the place of business of the individual or organisation in question.
- The value of work related discussions taking place occasionally outside the ambit of the office is recognised.
- The cultural focus of ACME distinguishes it from most other departments; there can be a justifiable need for officials to see the ‘product’ with which they are dealing to keep abreast of the latest developments in their field.
Process
- you should consult a manager of at least Grade A level, and generally your Deputy Director, when determining whether to accept hospitality.
- all rejections or acceptances of hospitality should be recorded on the register maintained by your Deputy Director.
Checklist before accepting an offer of hospitality
| Question | Elements to consider |
| Is the hospitality offered by individuals with whom ACME have an indirect or arm’s length relationship? |
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| Would acceptance of hospitality mitigate any Government criticism or investigation into the hosting organisation? | In this case no invitation should be accepted. |
| Is personal participation necessary? Would the attendance of someone else be more suitable? | Discuss this with the relevant activity manager. |
| How frequent are the offers of hospitality? |
|
| Is the event outside normal office hours? | The timing of attendance at events needs to be considered carefully. It may sometimes be necessary to attend events (sporting, exhibitions etc.) during normal working hours, but prior approval must be obtained. |
| What is the face value of the hospitality? |
|
| Is the event something that the general public would pay for? | Where organisations in receipt of Government resources offer invitations to events for which the public pay for admission, the official should judge whether acceptance, on professional grounds, would, if payment was required, be a legitimate claim for reimbursement of expenses. As before, if there is any doubt, the only safe course is to decline. |
* Further guidance is at Annex C. This outlines issues which may face staff in the Arts areas. Although this refers specifically to staff in that area, other Deputy Directors may find it useful when issuing guidelines for their own areas.
Members of staff offering hospitality
Principles
- The value of work related discussions taking place outside the ambit of the office is recognised and officials may occasionally wish to offer hospitality outside the office, to take forward business in a more encouraging climate.
- However, as in all other areas of conduct, staff are expected to observe exceptionally high standards of personal honesty, integrity and propriety.
- The number of civil servants should not exceed the number of guests when offering hospitality.
Spending limits
- Hospitality at public expense normally takes the form of lunch or dinner which is capped at a limit of £30 per head. Only in exceptional circumstances can this be exceeded.
- Claims for alcoholic beverages with lunch/dinner must be limited to half a bottle of wine per person.
Process:
- Director-level approval is required prior to providing hospitality.
- Applications for reimbursement of expenditure on official hospitality will only normally be accepted from SCS level and above.
- If exceeding the £30 per head limit, you must submit a rationale to the responsible Director and gain pre-approval that these circumstances are exceptional.
- If alcoholic drinks are offered at any time at public expense, the reasons for doing so should be given in writing.
- All claims for reimbursement of expenditure on hospitality must be made on Application for prior authority to spend from a ACME official hospitality budget (form)
- You must complete the relevant details on the TS4.
- A hard copy must then be made and suitably authorised and coded with cost centre, expense head and Integra authorising officer details.
- The Form TS4 should then be sent together with the relevant receipts to Liberata where they will register and scan the claim on Integra; the relevant authorising officer will then receive an automatic e-mail seeking approval or rejection.
- Hospitality is completely separate from the Travel and Subsistence system and policy. Any claims for hospitality submitted on T&S1 Form, or for payment via Integra unaccompanied by Form TS4, will be returned to the claimant.
Mandatory service charges or tips
If a restaurant includes a mandatory service charge of up to 12.5% in the UK, it can be paid as long as acceptable service was provided. When reclaiming, evidence that the service was acceptable must be provided in the form of a note on the signed claim form. Where you are outside of the UK, please refer to the International Travel and Subsistence Policy.
If there is no mandatory service charge, payment of a tip/gratuity/optional service charge is allowed up to a maximum of 10% of the total bill.
Working lunches
It may exceptionally be necessary to provide lunch for ACME employees. Before doing so, you should consider whether the meeting could be rescheduled so it does not fall over the lunch period – 9am to 1pm, or 1.30pm to 5pm, for example.
As with all hospitality, you must gain Director level approval for working lunches prior to the event.
The tax implications of working lunches vary dependent on who attends or where the lunch is held, and you may need to seek advice from HMRC on this.
