Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many and what proportion of their Department’s employees work from home at least one day a week.

Over the past two years, the Civil Service as a whole has had to work in a more agile way whilst still delivering essential public services. Before the pandemic, most departments worked on a basis of a ratio of desks to staff and that remains the case – so hybrid working arrangements are not new. No office will operate at 100% occupancy given there will always be a number of reasons why staff may be out of the office, for example people being on annual leave, attending meetings off site or external visits. Data on the Department’s occupancy are published: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-headquarters-occupancy-data.

Like most departments, in line with the practice in many public and private sector organisations, BEIS operates hybrid working arrangements where employees are expected to attend the office for at least 40%-60% of their time.