Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what their Departments policy is on Civil Servants in their Department working from home and receiving the London Weighting Allowance.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero does not pay a separate London Weighting allowance. Instead, the Department operates National and London pay ranges. The range an individual is on is determined by the contractual location of their post.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what their Departments policy is on Civil Servants in their Department working from home and receiving the London Weighting Allowance.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
If a role is based in a London FCDO Office, the role holder is eligible for a London Location Allowance (LLA) or a London Allowance (LA) dependent on their terms and conditions. The allowances only apply while an individual is London-based and will be removed if they change their usual place of work. The FCDO expects individuals to attend their usual place of work in line with the FCDO Hybrid Working policy.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what their Departments policy is on Civil Servants in their Department working from home and receiving the London Weighting Allowance.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Most DfT employees work in a hybrid manner, which provides flexibility regarding when and where they work. In line with the Department’s workplace and location principles DfT employees are expected to spend a minimum of 40% of their working time at their principal workplace.
Employees whose principal workplace, as set out in their contract, is within the M25 or where their working pattern involves working at multiple sites with the majority of their time required to be spent at locations within the M25 will receive London pay.
Subject to their meeting the eligibility criteria all DfT employees have a statutory right to request a flexible working arrangement, including to have their home assigned as their principal workplace (known as contractual homeworking). Where this is agreed and the employees’ home is their principal workplace, they will receive national pay regardless of the location of their home. Line Managers will consider flexible working requests in line with our flexible working policy, taking into account operational requirements and relevant legislation.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what their Departments policy is on Civil Servants in their Department working from home and receiving the London Weighting Allowance.
Answered by John Whittingdale
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) does not have a London weighting allowance. DCMS Civil Servants are placed on either a London or National pay scale which is determined by their contracted working location. Staff who are contracted to work from our London office are placed on a London payscale. In common with the vast majority of employers DCMS has adopted hybrid working and requires staff to work from their contracted office an average of two days per week.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
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.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what their Departments policy is on Civil Servants in their Department working from home and receiving the London Weighting Allowance.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In line with current policy, pay reflects where an employee is based.
Eligibility for the London pay range is linked to an individual’s job role needing to be based in a defined London office location.
Flexible working is a fundamental element of the Defra employment offer which is consistent with other sectors. Flexible working arrangements enable the department to make efficient use of resources, and the offer also ensures we attract and retain a diversity of talent. As part of this approach we have developed hybrid working arrangements which require employees to spend 2-3 days in the office each week, and the option of 2-3 days working from home. The majority of employees are working on a hybrid basis, or are entirely based in the workplace.
Asked by: Florence Eshalomi (Labour (Co-op) - Vauxhall)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion of Civil Servants that graduated the Fast Stream in the last five years have (a) parents or (b) guardians with (i) degree-level qualifications, (ii) qualifications below degree level and (iii) no formal qualifications.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
In the Spring 2023 rotation, 30.0% of Civil Service Fast Stream participants were allocated placements outside of London.
We do not hold data for Fast Stream participants who have graduated in the last five years in respect of; home location at application stage, school type, or parental education data.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an estimate of the number of civil servants who are paid less than the Living Wage Foundation's real living wage.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
This government is committed to paying people a decent living wage, and always adheres to the statutory National Living Wage. This will rise from £9.50 to £10.42 an hour from 1 April 2023, an increase of 9.7%. There are an estimated 5,710 civil servants who are paid less than the 2021/22 Living Wage Foundation's real living wage (£11.05 if based in London, or £9.90 if based outside of London).
Figures are based on the centrally held numbers and salaries of civil servants collected in the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey as at March 2022, and may differ from those provided by individual departments. Civil servants located outside the UK or with an unreported location (6,995) or without a reported hourly rate (an additional 150) have been excluded.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has made an estimate of the number of potential job losses as a result of the Common Platform.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Common Platform has been designed to provide the ability to view and share information across all stakeholder groups and provides a single location for the sharing of case information and notifying parties when new case material is available for them to view. It incorporates functionality to assist HMCTS staff in meeting the expectation that most decisions can be recorded at the time of hearing. This live ‘in-court’ recording of the outcomes of the court proceedings and the sharing of those outcomes with stakeholders such as the police are intended to protect the public and enable those authorities to respond immediately where for example a breach of an order occurs, or further offences are committed.
As part of the business case for the reform programme HMCTS conducted data gathering exercises in 2019 and 2020, where staff allocated their time by activity. The impact of the changes introduced by the Crime Programme (including the Common Platform) on the amount of time required to perform activities was then estimated by staff with experience of performing the relevant roles and understood the likely impact of the changes. These estimates were used to estimate time savings and efficiencies. Now that the Common Platform is in use, we are working with staff to validate the estimates made and ensure the actual impact on roles is understood.
The impact of the Reform programme on permanent Civil Servants across all jurisdictions will be mitigated by managing and reducing the flexible resources in our workforce, and not recruiting to vacancies where possible. Few redundancies are anticipated, and we will redeploy permanent Civil Servants where possible and support our temporary employees to find roles with us as their contracts end. It has always been our intention to invest and support our workforce as part of the overall reform programme – this means continuing to develop our people and ensuring they have the skills they need to provide the best service possible. We will ensure that everyone has personal and professional support though organisational change.
Asked by: Sam Tarry (Labour - Ilford South)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of civil service staff working are paid a rate equivalent to the real living wage, broken down by Government Department.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
In the majority of Government departments, at least 98% of staff earn a rate equivalent or greater than the 2021/22 Voluntary Living Wage (£11.05 if based in London, or £9.90 if based outside of London), as at 31 March 2022. In all departments the proportion is over 90%.
Table 1: Percentage of civil servants earning at or above the Voluntary Living Wage in March 2022 by Department
Departments (including agencies) | % at or above the VLW |
Attorney General’s Departments | 98.8% |
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy | 99.6% |
Cabinet Office | 99.7% |
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport | 100.0% |
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | 99.9% |
Education | ≥99.9%¹ |
Transport | 92.5% |
Health and Social Care | 99.5% |
International Trade | ≥99.9%¹ |
Work and Pensions | 100.0% |
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office | 99.5% |
HM Revenue and Customs | 100.0% |
HM Treasury | 99.5% |
Home Office | 98.6% |
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities | 99.4% |
Defence | 96.3% |
Justice | 98.5% |
Other² | 99.1% |
Scottish Government | 100.0% |
Welsh Government | 100.0% |
¹ Exact figure suppressed due to low numbers
² Other includes staff in Government organisations not listed separately (CC, CMA, COD, ESTYN, FSA, HMLR, NCA, NIO, OFGEM, OFQUAL, OFSTED, OFWAT, ORR, SO, TNA, UKEF, UKSA, UKSC, WO)
Figures are based on the centrally held numbers and salaries of civil servants collected in the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey as at March 2022, and may differ from those provided by individual departments. Civil servants located outside the UK or with an unreported location (6,995) or without a reported hourly rate (an additional 150) have been excluded. Percentages are calculated on a headcount basis and rounded to the nearest percentage point, due to the rounding a very small number of employees in departments listed as 100% may earn below the Voluntary Living Wage.