Administrative Circular No. 33 entitled "Duty travel", approved by the Director-General following examination by, and upon recommendation of the Standing Concertation Committee by written procedure on 26 November 2019, is now available via the following link: https://cds.cern.ch/record/2703986.

This revision cancels and replaces Administrative Circular No. 19 (Rev. 3) entitled "Subsistence indemnity – Other expenses necessarily incurred in the course of duty travel” of April 2003.

The new circular sets out the conditions and procedure for the authorization, organisation and execution of duty travel, including the rules pertaining to the booking and payment of transport and accommodation. It also explains the modalities regarding the payment of the daily travel allowance, which is intended to cover accommodation, meals and miscellaneous expenses. The provisions of this circular streamline the administration and reimbursement of duty travel.

While the circular comes into force in January 2020, the supporting tools and processes will be implemented in a phased approach. The main changes for all members of personnel to note are that, henceforth:

1) A Duty Travel Request is required in EDH prior to booking of travel, also for associated members of personnel.

2) All transport must be booked through either CERN’s online booking tool or its travel management company, CWT. During the first phase of the implementation, the new online booking tool will be available to Travel Arrangers and Travel Managers only. In a later phase, the tool will be available to all travellers and it will be used for booking transport and accommodation.

3) Paper originals of supporting documents are no longer needed, but rather may be scanned and attached to the EDH Duty Travel Request upon return from the travel. The originals should be retained at least until the claim has been completely processed. 

4) A new role of Departmental Travel Manager is created, so within each Department there will be a main point of contact.

5) The FAP Department will control and process travel claims for all travel with a date of return in 2020. For claims relating to 2019 travel, they will continue to be first controlled by HR Department, and then passed to the FAP Department, as is the current practise.

Members of the personnel are invited to consult the CERN Admin e-guide, expected to be available from January 2020, for more details : https://admin-eguide.web.cern.ch/en/procedure/duty-travel-january-2020. 

The FAP Department also remains available to answer any questions at the following address: claims.office@cern.ch.