Many of the above comments are not correct.
Any company can buy a bike and give it to an employee to use to travel to work. The law does not require that records are kept regarding usage by that employee - essentially you can do what you want with the bike. That employee could be the Director of a one-person company. There is also no requirement that the employee pays the company anything back for the bike.
It's slightly more complicated than that. The taxation implications are where it gets most complicated. Else you'd have a nice little tax loophole of paying your employees in pinarellos instead of a bonus.
Where a sole trader, as opposed to a ltd, is involved, it gets even more complicated. 99 times in 100 you'd get away with what you're suggesting. But if you lose the audit lottery, it can be a problem. Your ideas of acceptable levels of risk may differ from mine.
The other big confusion right through the thread is between Cycle to Work scheme and Cyclescheme
The first is the law under which companies can buy bikes for their employees, subject to certain conditions.
The second is the name of a private company set up to exploit that law, and which has made a lot of money from doing the trivial amount of admin necessary for bikes purchased under the Cycle to Work scheme. There is no requirement for companies wishing to use the scheme to do so via Cyclescheme, Halfords or any such 'administrator', and saving their 10-15 % commission.
A final confusion is around the £1,000 limit. There never was a limit under the Cycle to Work scheme. The limit was on how much the employer could claim back under salary sacrifice. There never has been anything to stop your employer buying a £10k Colnago and giving it to you, just they couldn't get you to pay them back for it!
As it is considered a loan, above £1000, a consumer credit license is required, fine if you already have one cos you're a bank, but a fuckton of extra admin if you are in any other form business. It gave a defacto limit, even the system has no such limit technically imposed.
The point that QG makes above about Cycle to Work schemes involving salary sacrifice not being accessible to those on low wages is a very good one. IMHO, while being favourable to cycling, the way it has been implemented has produced a horrendous scheme which mainly subsidises middle class people to buy bikes they would have bought anyway while doing nothing to help those on low incomes who may well cycle if they could get the same assistance.
Agreed.
Makes for an interesting exercise, how would you redesign the system to make it fairer for all, especially those on limited income who could benefit the most.
Something else I saw go on twitter that was interesting, is the employer imposed limit on bike purchase, some employers have a limit of £10k, some £3k2, etc... Some had it as a percentage of your gross annual income. All fine so far. Until you remember the gender pay gap, that and in some companies it's based on your rank within the company, which given that women are massively underrepresented at the higher levels of companies...
Cycle to work scheme is demonstrably not fit for purpose.
J