Holly Cairns
Question:719. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Social Protection the way in which her Department and public bodies and agencies under her remit are accommodating requests for persons to work from home. [42764/21]
View answerThursday, 9 September 2021
Questions (719)
Written answers
Civil Service departments and offices have been working in line with Government Covid-19 guidance, which provided for home working to continue where possible. As an essential service, staff in my Department have continued, throughout the pandemic, to work both on site in office premises and remotely to deliver for our customers across our nationwide network of offices. The number of staff who are working remotely at any one time across all regions is approximately 3,300 or 50% of the total staffing number and has remained relatively constant through the Covid-19 restrictions.
The Government has now published Ireland’s plan for the next phase of the response to the pandemic - COVID-19: Reframing the Challenge, Continuing Our Recovery and Reconnecting. Under this plan, the advice to work from home unless absolutely essential to attend the workplace is being withdrawn. This means that people can return to the workplace on a phased basis from 20th of September.
The Government has also confirmed its support of blended working in the Civil Service and, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is developing an overarching central framework to support consistency of implementation of blended working across the Civil Service.
This framework will inform the development of organization-level blended working policies tailored to the specific requirements of each Department/Office, whilst ensuring a consistency of approach across key policy areas. In conjunction with this framework an application process is also currently being developed to allow staff to apply for blended working into the future.
In line with this approach, it is intended, subject to business needs and individual suitability, to make blended working part of the way that my Department will work on a more permanent basis. To this end, my Department will develop a blended working policy based on the framework being developed by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and will aim to implement this policy in early 2022.
The position in relation to the relevant bodies under the aegis of my Department is as follows:
1. Citizens Information Board (CIB)
All CIB staff members are currently working remotely. CIB has committed to developing a remote working policy in line with central arrangements.
As CIB does not have a long-term remote working policy at present, no applications for permanent remote working have been received.
2. Pensions Authority:
All Pensions Authority employees continue to work from home pending further guidance from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform regarding a return to the office.
Where required, employees return to the office to undertake essential IT, administration and facilities management work. The Pensions Authority is currently developing its longer-term remote working policy and procedures in line with DPER guidance as it becomes available. No employees have applied to work from home permanently or from a hybrid model yet.