Civil service - Request remote work permanently

[Brightsparks2102]

Hi,

I work for the Civil Service, Cabinet office, GRS specifically. I'm a permanent staff member in civil service since 2011.

Currently my office base location is in Newcastle upon tyne. I work from home as there's no real demand to go into office due to capacity issues. Even though guidance says we should go in 40%-60%.

Now my husband has been offered a job that's located in Birmingham. We have 2 young children and we're a dual income household. So flexibility of my current role comes into question.

Would it be reasonable for me to request a home working contract under these circumstances where I'll be uprooting and relocating? It's an operational role, so easily done from home.

Don't want to go straight to my line manager as they are new to the department and I'm not sure where I can get 'anonymous' advice in the Department as everyone knows everyone.

I'll appreciate any assistance/guidance.

How would it be unreasonable? All workers gave he right to request. The employer has the right to decline.

What about a transfer to a West Midlands based role?

Totally reasonable to request, worst they can say is no, or is there a CS dept near where you’d go that you could transfer to?

It's a reasonable request, but they might say no. Could you suggest you would be willing to come to the office once per month or something if it was necessary?

Cabinet Office has two hub locations in Birmingham - I would request to shift home office location to one of those - do you WfH 100% at the moment?
How do you currently split childcare? Would WfH shift responsibility towards you?
Wellbeing wise, it might be good for you on relocation to have some "in-person" colleagues, with an option to maximise your WfH if needed to fit around childcare/parental duties (unsure of ages of your DCs)

Sorry, re-read your OP, you do WfH - is your current team location scattered? Do you have team days? Would you need to go to Newcastle occasionally for that?

Do a FORMAL FW request for homeworking - or a change of base to a local office.

If you've been successively wfh for some time with no impact on the business or your ability to carry out your work then they will struggle to demonstrate that any of the 8 business reasons on which they are allowed to turn down a FW request would apply in your case . You'd also have the right to appeal if your request is turned down.

I have two homework’s in my team. They joined during the pandemic (when we were all remote) but we weren’t able to grant them homework status during that time as HR weren’t able to process requests.

In my organisation a request does need to be endorsed by the line manager, so I’d check your policies and what the request for actually entails. You can then be ready to answer the questions you are likely to get and can prepare responses.

Even as homeworkers there is an expectation that they may need to attend the office (we’ve asked twice in five years) for legitimate business needs.

My last manager was located in Glasgow, but currently my whole team is newcastle based but there are staff in the Department on other teams which are scattered. We don't have any team days in the office. Everyone just goes in when they want etc.

Hi, I'm aware of one birmingham Cabinet office location, 23 Stephenson street, not sure where the other one is? I was thinking of requesting changing my base location, but we have no specific team members from GRS located there, so not sure if that will work 🤔 no harm asking I guess.

Thank you for the info, I've been working from home for a while and have had no performance issues, passing regular QA checks etc

I put in a request last week for similar reasons, we want to relocate 3 hours away. You need to put in a "statutory flexible working request" - I got all my info from the ACAS website, including a letter template. I work for the Home Office so dont now if the process will be the same, I had to hunt for the policy, but it can only be singed off by a grade 6 or above. I'm expecting them to refuse it but they can only do so on 8 specific reasons (again see ACAS!), they have to decide within 8 weeks of putting in the request so I have 7 long weeks to wait!. I'd go for it, they can only say no

I think it will depend on your department. In mine, even if you worked from home before covid, if you don’t have a wfh contract, you have to go in for at least 3 days per week. They are refusing any new contractual changes to home working. They are allowing location changes but only to one of the 4 main offices.

Totally reasonable to request but they are totally within their rights to say no.

@Ilikewinter Hello! I came across this thread after looking for information on statutory flexible working requests within the civil service. I wondered whether you received a response to your request?

@Ilikewinter Oops! Just realised this thread is actually really recent so maybe you haven’t heard back yet?

Hi, nope not heard anything yet, although I've had a meeting with my grade 7 who just wanted to talk through my request before forwarding it to her manager. She did say she would support my request but its not her decision unfortunately! I'm keeping fingers crossed but still expecting them to turn it down.

@Ilikewinter Fingers crossed your G6 approves it! Do you know anyone else in Home Office with a remote working arrangement in place? In my dept, I know of a few people who have an informal arrangement in place where they live far from the office and come up when required at the own expense, but that arrangement could end at any time

Sorry to hijack this thread but I wondered if anyone has any thoughts on when to put in a statutory flexible working request. I have been told informally by my G6 that she has agreed with the DD and Director that I can work remotely but has not put this in writing (but has said she will) and has said that the arrangement might not last long-term if requirements to attend the office yet stricter (there is a hybrid working review in my dept currently underway) or if I move to a different team. I’m wondering whether I should put in a statutory flexible working request so I get a more formal agreement in place but there is a chance that it’s turned down if it gets near HR. The other option would be to go ahead and move based on the informal agreement I currently have and to put in a statutory request in the future if I’m required back in the office every week.

Just a word of caution although it might not be the same in all Departments. Whilst you do have the right to request ( and they have the right to say no) you may only be able to put in a request once within a certain timeframe..e.g. once every 12 months. So think about not putting in teh request until you are really sure. Having said that , the new employment laws Labour are proposing will put the onus on the employer to agree wherever possible

I work in HR for a civil service organisation. We wouldn’t approve a home working request for this reason, and this is the guidance across the civil service. You are moving close to a hub so we would agree to move your office location if it was possible (depends on whether we have a presence in that hub or not), but officially the only reason we agree fully home working contracts is if we decide to completely cease operating from the office you work from. There are other reasons we would consider but it doesn’t sound like these apply to you.

A choice to move to a location further from your office wouldn’t be sufficient reason to give you a working from home contract. If we did this would cause issues in the wider workforce because naturally everyone is going to want to have a wfh contract, and that’s just not possible. You would have the choice to continue to commute to the nearest office at your cost, or find another job.

I’m not in agreement with this because I know it’s not one size fits all, and personally think home working contracts should be available. However. This is the CS position. Hopefully you are in a niche role that would be hard to fill because this would be your leverage x

@AllThePotatoesAreSinging Thanks for your reply, that’s really helpful. Would you ever agree to reducing the requirement to attend the office (to say once a month) but keeping the contractual office location the same? Presumably the only instances where a home working contract would be issued are for reasonable adjustments under equality legislation?

@AllThePotatoesAreSinging .....A choice to move to a location further from your office wouldn’t be sufficient reason to give you a working from home contract. If we did this would cause issues in the wider workforce because naturally everyone is going to want to have a wfh contract, and that’s just not possible.

Whilst I don't doubt what you've said! ... a flexible working request cannot be refused on the grounds that it will /may/could set a president amongst the rest of the team. From my understanding (going from ACAS) an employee doesn't even have to give a reason for the request.

I would put that in as a formal request, no way for anyone to backtrack on it that way .... or at the very least get it in writing but even then I would be very uneasy about that being 'reviewed' in the future.

Based on my experience in Hmrc they will reject it