Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of his Department's employees work on a fully remote basis.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The DWP has 407 members of staff that are recorded as being permanent Homeworkers which equates to 0.46%. This is data as of 30^th November 2023.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what their Departments policy is on Civil Servants in their Department working from home and receiving the London Weighting Allowance.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP does not have a London Weighting Allowance. DWP has four pay zones and correspondence pay scales: National, Inner London, Outer London and Special Location Pay Zones.

DWP has a hybrid working policy where employees are required to spend a minimum of 40% of their time in the office over a four-week period. In DWP, contractual home working is allowed only as a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010 for a disabled colleague or following a successful application under the Flexible Working Regulations.

Flexible working is also a fundamental element of the Civil Service employment offer which is consistent with other sectors. Flexible working arrangements enable departments to make efficient use of resources, and the offer also ensures the Civil Service can attract and retain a diversity of talent.

For employees who are either contractual homeworkers or hybrid workers, their pay is determined by either their designated office or their contracted office, respectively. Contractual homeworkers still have a designated office for pay purposes. Hybrid workers are still contractually based in an office. They will receive pay according to where their particular office falls in the above zones.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Civil Service headquarters occupancy data, updated on 1 June 2022, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of occupancy rates on his Department's performance during May 2023.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The data published by Cabinet Office is for DWP’s London Caxton House building only, and does not cover the Department’s other corporate, or service delivery locations and does not cover employees working in other government buildings or workplaces. The Department does not have data that can provide an assessment of the potential impact of occupancy rates in Caxton House on DWP’s performance specifically during May 2023. Broader research conducted across the Civil Service has considered the impact of hybrid working on productivity and found that overall productivity is being maintained. We continue to keep hybrid working under review.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

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

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

As a department we do not capture figures for employees working from home at least one day a week. We do however record figures for employees who attend the office. Our Hybrid working policy is minimum of 40% of their time in the office. As a department have headquarters utilisation data published here.

The Total DWP on a given day, the average figures for people who were working and were in an office are as follows: (Staff that are not working in the office, can either be working remotely or from home).

Q2 2022/23

DWP Total – 59.4%

Q3 2022/23

DWP Total – 60.3%

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the impact of increased homeworking during the covid-19 outbreak on her Department’s carbon footprint.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department monitors and reports on its greenhouse gas emissions - information on this is published in the Greening Government Commitments Annual Report.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of staff in her Department are currently working from home on a full-time or part-time basis whose residence is in (a) England, (b) Scotland and (c) Wales.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The information requested is only available at a Great Britain level.

The proportion of DWP staff who are contractual home workers is 0.03%.

35.55% of staff work in customer facing front line roles which predominantly require staff to work in the office.

The remaining 64.42% of roles in the department can be performed on a hybrid basis, meaning they split their time between working in a workplace and at home. Employees in these roles have been returning to the office in a safe and considered way over the last few months. As part of this, every staff member is having a one-to-one conversation with their manager to discuss their return to the workplace.

DWP maintained its services throughout the pandemic; Jobcentres have remained open throughout the pandemic for anyone who needed face-to-face support and could not be helped in any other way, with DWP employees available on site to support the most vulnerable claimants. On 12 April 2021, Jobcentres in England and Wales returned to normal opening hours from 9am to 5pm, with Jobcentres in Scotland restarting the same face to face service from 26 April 2021.

Across all DWP offices, safety measures remain in place as per the relevant Government and devolved administration health and safety guidance, and whilst these measures are in place it is not possible to return to full office capacity.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance is provided on home working to staff in her Department resident in (a) England, (b) Scotland and (c) Wales.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department has a long-standing policy on the circumstances in which an employee might request and be allowed to work from home.

This policy was supplemented in July 2021 with publication of new guidance for those employees that are designated ‘hybrid workers’. This new guide covers a wider range of topics, such as effective performance management and caring whilst working from home.

Both the long-standing home working policy and new hybrid working guidance apply consistently across England, Scotland and Wales.