Department for Education: Coronavirus

(asked on 1st September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of his civil service staff are back at work at his Department.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 30th September 2020

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 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 seven 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.

For the week commencing 14 September, approximately 13.5% of staff attended one of our offices. Since the Prime Minister announced a new series of measurements on Tuesday 22 September, the Department has advised staff to work from home where they can. Offices will remain open to support those colleagues without easy access to high quality home working facilities such as those in shared accommodation, and for new starters and colleagues earlier in their careers in need of more support. This is alongside a number of our colleagues who have continued to operate in their usual workplace throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, delivering vital public services.

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