If you work in the Civil Service, how flexible are flexi hours?

[muskateerfour]

Hi, I’ve had a provisional offer for a role within DEFRA. It’s project management so operational and I’ll need to be in the office fairly often. I’ve been advised by HR I can definitely do a couple of late starts each week and have some flex on my working hours. Didn’t delve deeper with HR at this stage as the offer is still only provisional and I would accept the job without flexi hours if needed.

However, I’m already thinking about childcare for school holidays and covering morning school runs, and I wondered how flexi time works for other civil servants? For example, would I need to set out my hours in advance and stick to them without chopping and changing, or could I clock in and out at my discretion as long as I make sure I’m completing my contracted hours each week?

Also wonder if anyone has successfully negotiated additional unpaid leave for school holidays? I’ve heard pro data term time contracts are common, but I would only need to take off some of the school holidays, say 5-6 weeks a year rather than 13.

Thanks in advance.

Some departments have core hours that you have to be in work for (I think my department is something like 10:00/10:30 to 3:30/3:45 or something, sorry I can't remember). I assume that any changes to this would be up to your line manager but I imagine most are pretty flexible just so long as you're there for a particular chunk of each day.

This is so that you can attend meetings etc and so that you get to work with colleagues.

That’s quite a long probationary period but seems there are some excellent benefits that kick in after the first year

They have core hours so if full time you can work your hours between 7 and 7 but have to start by 10am and not finish before 3pm

Lunch break longer than an hour needs to be approved by line manager (but no one really follows this rule tbh)

Probation period is 6 months

You can request paid or unpaid special leave for caring responsibilities e.g sick child but they will look at whether you have annual leave to use instead and quite often if you have AL left the special leave requests will be rejected.

Unpaid Parental leave is set down in law and you can request it every year

I have worked for a CS department in the past - overall it was very flexible for some, I just had a rank awful micro-manager who went completely out her way to make my life difficult in so many ways.

With my team, however- I was extremely flexible. The team needed to be covered 8-6, with at least one person in 8-9 and 5-6... I left it to them to sort between themselves and for the most part it worked beautifully. They each had their preferred patterns, and would come and go as they pleased. As long as the work was getting done, and they let me know if any anomalies (I.e long lunches / extra late starts) I was happy to let them get on with it. Unfortunately, when I left my manager didn’t replace me and ruled them with the same iron fist she did with me. Let’s just say there’s not many of my team left anymore....

Parental leave is for emergency situations, eg odd day if childcare breaks down, child is sick etc, it is not an extra annual entitlement to cover school holiday childcare/an unpaid addition to your annual paid leave. You cannot plan your childcare around it basically. If you need school holidays off then you need to get a term time only contract.

In that case it sounds like I’ll need to negotiate semi term time or working from home during a few of the holidays

Apologies. My post was wrong. I was thinking of paid special leave not the statutory unpaid for settling kids into school etc. Unpaid special leave has to be in week blocks. However still involve business discretion so multiple weeks' leave each summer may not be guaranteed without a term time contract. Will depend on the team you are in.

It is not clear what the post-COVID attitude on working from home with children in situ will be. Up to COVID was always a no-no, but obviously we've all had to cope for last year.

DH is civil service. He set his own hours when in the office (he is part time and VERY occasionally had to dial in to a meeting on his day off) but he's on the tech side and is more or less permanently WFH now.
He's used unpaid parental leave (planned, in week blocks) and the holidays are generous.
Are there no holiday clubs or childminders though?

It really depends on the specific department. Where I worked (prior to having children) in theory you could work 7am-3pm and I often did however we did have to be there for core hours. I wouldn’t have been able to do school runs and meet the core hours as my commute took too long. We were all on a rota to make sure phones were covered till 5pm too. Regarding covering school holidays, some colleagues with children worked term time only - they were flexible in that regard but that needed to be agreed at the start. If I were to go back I’d have to do that and part time hours.

I work in the CS and as long as I do my 37 hours they are happy. I've worked every formal kind of agreement possible I think over the last 20 years, part-time, compressed hours etc...

I much prefer to work flexibly across the week and we can also have 3 days in credit or debit at a time.

I have known people to take unpaid parental leave as you mention or work term time only.

I know people who work in CS and they tend to be in PCS union. You could ask your local rep a bit more about your hours and local management before you start and a bet they'll be more than happy to help. You should be able to find their contact details online

Depends on your role. Yes there’s flexibility but also business need. Through lockdown 1 I had a call I was required to be on at 9am every day and frequently had calls that finished at 5. So working on a Saturday wouldn’t meet the business need

Thanks all and thanks for clarifying @grumpymummy72

www.gov.uk/parental-leave/entitlement

Parental leave entitlement only kicks in once you’ve been working for a year.

I'm in the CS, not defra. I'm on an AWP which i have to apply for every year. It's a formality though. Recent changes to our terms and conditions mean that awp contracts run for 5 years, unless the jobholder requests otherwise.

DH is Defra. Don't assume that you'll get everything you ask for - it's quite flexible but business needs are what they are. Some cover runs 8-8 for example.

I'm not sure why you think you need all school holidays off though, and why you wouldn't just use childcare, breakfast and after school clubs.

Also the point WFH with kids has only been ok because people have had to. It's kind of proven the point that you need childcare in place and cant do your job with kids running around. So do think about how you'll manage as things settle back to 'normal'.

Definitely ask for what would work but please do not ask for wfh whilst your kids are there unless they are self sufficient and both 12+.

You aren't wfh if you are providing childcare. If you include that in any way as an option I think it will make them less likely to say yes to any more reasonable options as the perception will be that you might not really be working if they say yes to those too.

COVID has been a unique, no choice situation.

I say this in the nicest way possible as a working num.

I work for cs the probationary period is 6 months ..flex very good core hours 10-3pm.... can start at 7am to 10 am - and finish times up to 7pm ..very flexable re hours for child care as long as the 37 hours are made up ...can create flex days over month but if in deficit to be made up following month .there is room for school hols leave during summer and term time ...again it does depend on your manager and the type of work you are going to do
the DBS and refs can take time to come through if you havnt heard anything after a month then chase it up ....some people had clearance within weeks some people were still waiting after 4 months ...chase it up if you need to ....Good luck !!!

Everyone wants time off during school holidays, especially July & August.
I’ve only ever had one colleague who could afford to take unpaid parental leave, and she caused a lot of resentment by asking for this at peak times like Christmas, Easter & August. Only 2 people at a time were allowed leave at any one time, and if she took all of August, it meant 2 other colleagues couldn’t take their annual leave then, as there would be insufficient cover.
Management wouldn’t refuse her application if nobody had booked their leave at that time, so we all had to become adept at booking a year in advance. Before she joined, booking leave was far more relaxed, and far more equitable

Our flexi is anytime between 7am and 9pm. A minimum of 3 hrs and a maximum of 12 hours per day. We are supposed to discuss our plans with line manager but in practice, we do what we like. In addition to part time, we have part year working where you can choose to have a number of weeks per year unpaid leave. They then calculate your salary on that and divide by 12 so you have the same money coming in each month. We have many parent opt for this for school holidays.

Flexi time in the civil service is very different from working term time. Be sure not to confuse the two.

Flexi means - subject to individual departments - being able to sign on between 8 and 10 am and off between 4 and 6. You have to take a minimum lunch break and you have to do core hours and you have to meet 37 hours a week though you can go into credit and debit with it.

In reality, you settle into a team, and you and your manager work out what works with your needs and the team objectives.
It's not a given that you'll join a team and leave everyday at 4 for example.

Term time working and "having the summer off" is not at all a given.

I work for CS (not DEFRA).

No core hours, before covid could work anytime between 7am-6.30pm, currently due to covid can work anytime between 6:30am-8pm. Hours are 37hours a week. So if I wanted to I could start at 6:30am and finish at 2:30pm (including lunch break).

Can work long days or short days (as long as over 6 hours) without approval from my Line Manager. Anything less than 6 hours needs to get approved due to planning of work. Some days I will work 6 hours and 5 mins, other days over 8 hours. As long as I work 90 mins and my Line Manager allows it, I can take the rest of the day as flexi. Anything less than 90 mins a day counts as a days holiday.

Before covid I could build up as much flexi in the week (or lose flexi). Same as others, just had to make sure it didn't go above or below a certain limit each month.

Since covid I can build up flexi but within reason. So I can't keep working 12 hours days and burn out to build up time off. Instead I have to be considerate and ensure I'm not working to much over my contracted hours each week as they want to make sure people don't make themselves ill. For example, this week I built up 25 mins flexi. Think the most I've built up in a week is just over 1 hour.

No set times for lunch breaks, could take a 3 hour lunch break if I wanted (as long as I gave my Line Manager a heads up). Minimum is 30 mins. I used to work with someone who would appear in the office just before 10:30am, take her lunch break around 4pm and finish at 6:30pm.

I love my job and I love the flexibility.

Oh, and school holidays are protected periods of holidays. So anyone can request time off during the school holidays, but they won't approve the holidays until a couple of months before to ensure everyone has submitted their holiday requested and to ensure it's fair. Especially Christmas. Holidays during the protected periods aren't considered on a team by team basis, but instead as a whole office to ensure there is enough of each grade available.