This is in the context of the small company scheme.
Our engineering department is run by a qualified head of engineering, who spends some time directly on the projects, but then a proportion of time supervising the engineering team.
Is it permissible to claim a proportion of the cost of the head of engineering's time as supervision for the projects?
Thanks,
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Replies (12)
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I vote yes. He spent that time working on the projects. (I assume you mean the R&D projects when you say "projects".)
Yes, the manager does work directly on some R&D projects, so I already include that part.
Can I also claim a part of the cost as supervision of other engineers who are working on the projects themselves?
For the manager's supervision of the time they are working on the project- sure. They spent that time discussing, reviewing etc the project.
Definitely, Yes (in the circs described).
Presume you maintain timesheets (or some evidence of allocation of time to projects), in which case (if you don't have it already) an extra column for role (during those hours as opposed to job title within company) would be useful.
I vote yes too. The BEIS guidelines on R&D set out what costs can be claimed and include:
"Activities which form part of a project but do not directly contribute to the resolution of the scientific or technological uncertainty include:...
Indirect supporting activities such as maintenance, security, administration and clerical activities, and finance and personnel activities, insofar as undertaken for R&D;..."
Which widens the scope even further than what you are discussing. What you are describing would fit as an indirect supporting activity under the administration heading.
Many thanks for everyone's help, I have the BEIS manual, so need to re-read.
Think I was being overly harsh with reference to "clerical"
Yes to both work types. Even though he is not working directly on the technical uncertainty, he still has to guide the engineers under his supervision in the right direction for the R&D to progress.
