Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what is the percentage office workplace attendance requirement in each of the department’s offices, broken down by location; and whether attendance statistics are collated for each of those individual offices.

The requirement to attend a workplace will depend on an employee’s role. Where employees are not in customer-facing roles or otherwise designated as office-based they have access to hybrid working, which is a type of voluntary flexible working arrangement, blending a combination of all workplace options (including home) with an office identified as a base and which remains the contractual place of work.

In line with Cabinet Office guidance, hybrid working is explicitly offered informally on a non-contractual basis. Where employees outside customer-facing / office-based roles take up the hybrid offer, in compliance with a collective note from all permanent secretaries in 2023, they must attend their DWP office for a minimum 60% of their hours – that is averaging 3 days out of 5 for a full-time colleague.

Regarding whether attendance statistics are collated for each of the individual offices, the information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.