Civil service and flexi hours

[purpleumbrellas]

Are there any civil servants out there who can help me weigh up a job offer please? The salary is low but the location is easy to get to and I think I'd find the work interesting. My query is around flexi hours.

I think I could fairly easily work an additional 3-4 hours each week without it really having an impact (this was mentioned at interview and I know the department is really busy). In the private sector I have easily put in this many additional hours on a weekly basis.

Am I right in calculating that if I work an extra days's worth of flexi hours every fortnight, I would end up with easily another 20+ days' I could take as flexi / leave?

I think I must be missing something because that would bring me to over 45 days annual leave.

Depending on your flexi policy then yes that's about right although it's not extra leave as you've put the work in so don't feel guilty or like you're getting extra, you're just getting flexibility as to when you put those hours in.

I make sure I have enough flexi in the bank that for every week I take off work one day is a flexi day so in effect that gives me an extra week of leave a year (though as above it's not extra I've just decided to work a couple extra hours in the week at a time that suits me)

Most places I've worked it's capped at one per month although my current ALB is extremely relaxed, I think it's actually 3 here but my boss doesn't really care he trusts me but I've rarely needed to take more than 1 flex day a month anyway.

Thanks @Changedmyname1357, I think that’s what I’m wondering- there is no expectation to actually ‘make up’ any time I take out, but then more often than not I’ve done at least a couple of extra hours anyway, if there was a week I would have otherwise worked my usual hours I wouldn’t have to do make it up unless I had something urgent to get done that my time out prevented me doing. Some weeks I could end up out loads, eg arrived late because of drop off and bad traffic but still got through all my work so leave at usual time, then maybe have an assembly, dental appt or whatever all in the one week. Aside from that it is probably quite high pressure/stressful corporate environment.

I work in central government and we can take up to two days flexi a month. If you don't use it, it rolls over but you can't take more than 2 days. I don't normally have that much as try and work 9-5 as much as possible but lately I've been busy and it's been building up. Now I'll be able to roll over half a day from June and add a bit more this month to get a full day. I took a pay cut to come to the civil service but for me, the flexible working and consideration around work/life balance has definitely made it worthwhile. Also my work is varied and interesting. There are lots of people with different working patterns so I don't feel at all like I'm shirking off or need to be available at a certain time. Since we've been wfh, I have school runs marked in my calendar so no-one puts meetings in then. This is pretty normal.

I worked similar, I could work 15 hours flexi over a month but it could only be carried for a short period of time before being taken. However the department I worked in didn’t allow you to accrue it to have days off, it was based on whether you actually had the work available or not.

That said, yes you can end up with that although rarely that happens.

We could only earn flexi from 8am up to 6pm (normal core hours were 8:30 - 5 (4:30 on Fridays)). Minimum half hour lunch.

@hangryeyes

Can I jump on this to ask a similar question? I currently work in the private sector but have been considering a move to the public sector for better hours/flexitime/etc. I have reasonable contracted hours but for various reasons usually clock about 5-8 hours (unpaid) overtime a week, so typically total about 42 hours per week. However aside from making sure I’m at meetings and meet any deadlines, I can organise my time as I see fit- outside of covid times I had WFH days and could do extra anytime it was needed, do school drop offs most days, go to any appointments/assemblies/etc without needing to use annual leave. Would I see any benefit from flex etc?

It sounds as though you’re already in a senior enough position to be able to work flexibly, so you’d probably not see any benefit - by the time you get to grades where you can do this in the public sector you’ll be beyond the formal flexi scheme anyway, which tends to apply for junior and admin grades.

Where I work you can carry over 2 days per month and use two days, but that depends on your manager - they can be more flexible if the circumstances allow. My team works on covid response and over the last few months have had to work stupid hours out of necessity so I encourage them to take the flexi where possible and then carry over what they can't (they can easily build up 2 days a week at present) but that won't be sustainable long term. We also are allowed to carry over 4 weeks leave last year so have to to 10 weeks to take in theory, but trying to take it is another story. I approve all leave that I can, but I need at least 5 people in every day so in any one week, I can have half my team out on flexi or leave while it's quieter.

10/10 recommend working in the civil service though.

Depending on your role, I wouldn't bank on being able to bank lots of flexi. Not every role will have sufficient work to justify doing 3/4 extra hours work per week. And if you're working extra hours but only have the same productivity/outputs as someone working their standard hours, your ability to handle your time and work effectively will be questioned.

We can get 13 flexi days a year in local govt, as others have said. It's not limited to staff on lower grades. But I wanted to add that after 5 years, your annual leave goes up to 30 days, so you can get 43 days of leave then. You obviously have to cover your workload though.

Where i am you can take 3 flexi days a month max. In all honesty you build up the flexi if you have the work, then take the odd day here and there or a few hours here and there. But yes it increases the time you can have off work

I’m a civil servant and here you can accrue a maximum of 3 flexi days a month (which added to my 30 days AL, makes it very worthwhile!) I tend to take only 1 or 2 days extra a month though because I tend to take Friday afternoons off and the odd shorter day here and there.

When I was a civil servant you could go + or - half of your weekly working hours & take half your weekly working days per flexi period of 5 days, for full time this was 18.5 hours & 2.5 days every 4 weeks, twice a year you could take 5 days in a flexi period. We could work from 7.00am to 6.30pm with no core time, most people either started at 7.00am & finished early or started late & finished at 6.30pm.

I can take one Flexi day per month maximum. New starters can't take any Flexi for several months until they're fully trained, working at a high level and their quality of work is good.

have worked in a few diff cs depts/arms length bodies. As pp's have said
a) how much you can accrue and take varies between diff depts
b) but yes generally you can accrue up to 24 days extra leave per year
c) but you would usually have to take it within a month of accruing it not 20 days at once. But by using those 2 days a month (or whatever) on the odd inset days/dentist appointments it does mean you can save the most of your annual leave to take a few weeks at a time, if you want and your dept lets you, plus could add on a day or two flexi at each end. Some depts also let you get into a deficit of a day or two a month too as long as you make it up.

While I agree with what other people are saying in that it's not technically "extra" leave because you've accrued it by working over your set hours, having worked out of the public sector and knowing how much extra unpaid work lots of friends and family do (from shop assistants to solicitors to teachers), when you're only doing half an hour extra a day and it adds up to enough to have an extra 3 1/2 weeks leave it feels like a good benefit!

Civil servant here. We can work any time between 7am -9pm. A maximum of 12 hours per day and a minimum of 3 hours. We can take up to 4 flexi days per 4 week period. Some staff work compressed hours ie do their week (37 hours) over 4 days and have 1 day off per week. As long as you stay within limits of -11 hours and +30 hours.

@MrsTulipTattsyrup thanks, you’ve pretty much confirmed it for me- at present I don’t manage people (have done in the past), any equivalent CS jobs I can find would involve significant team management. I think the only benefit would be if I could get a part-time contract or condensed hours, the downside of where I am now is that there is no option for reduced hours beyond extra WFH or ad hoc, because of the other flexibility.

Where I work I can take a maximum of 2 days flexi leave a month it can be carried over but if it’s more than 14 hours you lose the excess. You can also swap it for annual leave. If I have more than 14 hours accrued I can work flexibly and work shorter days although have to be around for core hours.

I left my CS job a couple of years ago but we were able to start 30 minutes early, leave 30 minutes later and work up to 30 minutes of our lunch hour giving us the equivalent of a day off each week we worked that. In actuality, it was an awful job and nobody could manage an extra 7.5 hours a week 😂 which I think they knew

Our Flexi clock could be in credit a maximum of 4 days before you stopped accruing anything but it was handy for taking an extra day off every few weeks or building up extra holidays.

I had a CS job as a teenager. It was 2 weeks on 2 weeks off. About a week of that was quiet and we'd be sent home but still get paid for the full day. Then a week was busy and we did lots of Flexi. I used to get one day a week off with the hours accrued. It was great and there was a tea trolley too and a proper restaurant with a bar and it was all subsidised. I mean we got paid peanuts but as a teen living at home it was great!

HMRC here we can take the equivalent of 7 days flexi in a 3 month accounting period.

Rules vary by department. In my department you can only accrue flexi by prior agreement with your manager and then only if there is a business need - you can’t just sit there for 3/4 hours a week extra twiddling your thumbs and expect the time back as leave. I managed someone recently who was quite surprised to be informed he couldn’t have the time back because there hadn’t been enough work across the team that month to occupy the whole team in working hours, never mind to necessitate someone accruing 2 whole extra working days in that time! Conversely, when we have been very busy I always make sure the team gets the time back, either by giving them a flexi day (depending on business need) or by changing their next booked a/l to flexi instead.

It’s not extra annual leave - it’s to ensure you are compensated for times when you’ve had to put in extra hours. You won’t be allowed to accrue say a week and have a week off in lieu - it will be done in 4 weeks blocks with limits as to how much you can accrue (usually around 2 days) and when you can take it. You can only take it by prior agreement too - so don’t expect to just be able to routinely take your 2 days a month back if the team can’t manage that.

I’d wait until you start and see what everyone else is doing, scope out the culture of the team. Flexi is great for managing round doctors appts, school events, school runs etc but if you routinely want time off every month then it’s best to explore options like condensed hours.

It entirely depends on where you are in the civil service. If our flexi gets to a day's worth our manager gets a ticking off so we can't really acrue it. We're encouraged to keep it as low as possible.

Which department is the offer from? And is it definitely a grade that flexi applies to? It doesn’t apply above a certain grade in my department.

Do a 9 day fortnight, compressing your hours, then you can legitimately take one day off every other week, so 16 hours a month. Then any other flexi you can take off/ carry over

In my bit you can build up and take up to three flexi days a month. However, I've yet to do this. It is more usually one day a month or hours in a particular day.

Really does depend on the department, grade and role, eg
person A may be able to take a maximum of 3 days flexi leave in a 4 wk accounting period (if there was leave available), with flexi limits of 4 days in credit/3 days in deficit, but works fixed shifts on a rota, and is only be able to work additional hours with prior consent from a manager (must be a significant business need, and usually additional hours can only be as paid OT)
person B may be required to work "core hours" of 10am-2pm and can otherwise manage their own schedule, but can only take 1 day of flexi leave in a 4wk accounting period and has limits of 2 days in credit or deficit, with paid overtime usually only available by exception.
person C may have extra annual leave, but isn't eligible for flexi - is expected to manage their workload and diary within their weekly working hours, though OT may still be available for specific projects or additional work required on a non-working-day

Ask for a copy of the annual leave and flexi leave policy and procedures. Just because there's additional hours available during a pandemic, doesn't mean you should plan on them being available long term. The government are already looking at ways to cut costs, and blanket bans on additional hours (and payrises) have been imposed in the past.

You also may have a set day or days you have to use your leave for (office closure days), and you may gain additional days of annual leave after something like 10 years in service.

NB if you are used to being able to book the whole Xmas eve-new year period off, or long periods/specific weeks in the summer hols, you might have difficulty with availability - as well as being periods of peak leave requests, there are a significant number of staff who work term time only.