Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of Department for Education staff based in central London were working from their office desks on 2 September.

Staff in the department have been working remotely since the middle of March and have been focused on dealing with the challenges posed by COVID-19.

In recent months, the Department for Education has been working to ensure all our buildings are Covid-secure and putting in place plans to welcome staff safely back to the office.

Phase 1 saw a small number of volunteer staff return to the larger offices in August. Phase 2 started on 1 September, opening up to 20% capacity across our 7 largest offices. Phase 3 is being planned and will enable 30-40% of capacity to be opened up, including at the department’s smaller sites.

We continue to see an increase in number of staff returning and on Wednesday 2 September, a total of 4% of staff who are contracted as London based worked in Sanctuary Buildings, Westminster.

As of Wednesday 9 September, 5.5% of London based staff were working from Sanctuary Buildings, Westminster.