Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department permits civil servants employed in the UK to work from overseas on a regular basis.

While it is possible to support employees who want to work from outside of the UK there is no right to do so and in many cases support will be impossible. The department does not allow people to work from outside of the UK without assessing risk on a case-by-case basis. The country the employee is asking to work from, the location within the country, the working arrangements and nature of the work the employee would be doing are examples of relevant factors. If an employee needs to take a department device abroad or they want to access our systems when they are overseas, they must get approval first.

There are policy limits on the amount of time any employee may be allowed to work outside of the UK. This is currently 2 weeks at any one time unless the employee is accompanying a partner on an overseas civil service posting. The actual limit will vary according to the circumstances of the request. There is also an annual limit on the amount of time anyone can work outside of the UK of no more than 6 weeks in any 12 month period.