Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the mean proportion is of officials in his Department physically working in their office whose office is in (a) Darlington and (b) London on each day in each of the last three months; and what information on staff working patterns his Department is collecting to understand and plan for accommodation and facilities.

The Treasury does not hold the information requested.

As part of the Government Estate Strategy, the Treasury has agreed a commitment, along with all departments and their executive agencies, to implement smarter working by 2022. As part of the department’s work with the Government Property Agency on this important public sector initiative, the Treasury will consider lessons learned from ways of working during lockdown to make its final policy decisions on the smarter working remit including remote working.

The Treasury will publish its approach to managing workspace during the Covid-19 pandemic in the Performance Report of its Annual Report and Accounts as it has done in 2019/20 and 2020/21.