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Flexible working: Gov't 'must do better'
Whitehall not ready to run the UK from the bedroom

By Nick Heath

Published: Wednesday 30 July 2008

The government may be pushing employers to embrace more flexible and greener ways of working for their staff but new figures show Whitehall itself lagging some way behind the rest of the country.

The number of civil service staff able to log into central government systems remotely stands at approximately 48,215 - just over 14 per cent of the 337,037 civil servants across the main central Whitehall departments and their associated agencies.

The figures, which exclude the Home Office, show much work is still needed for the government to realise its ambition for more civil service staff to be able to use mobile devices to access email remotely or from home, as set out in its Greening Government ICT report.

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills is leading the way with 100 per cent of staff given laptops for home working, but the Ministry of Justice has just four per cent of staff able to work from home, putting it at the bottom of the list.

Compared to the home working picture nationally, Whitehall fares badly. Figures from the 2006 Work Life Balance Employee survey by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform showed that just under a quarter (23 per cent) of workers across the UK are able to work from home.

Across Whitehall the standard set up for home workers is encrypted laptops, with many staff using secure access cards to get at central government infrastructure.

Philip Flaxton, CEO of smarter working group Work Wise UK, said: "There is room for substantial improvement and the government really should be setting an example, particularly in light of government initiatives to promote flexible working.

"But it is an improvement over where the government was two years ago and I think the fact that flexible working can impact on the bottom line will drive the change forward in the public and private sector."

The figures were revealed in a series of parliamentary written answers to questions from MP Bob Spink.

Spink told silicon.com home working "helps the environment and quality of life for the employee and can give higher productivity and higher quality work if it is organised properly".

The full Whitehall home working figures, broken down by department, show:

• Ministry of Defence: 11,316 employees and 10,000 external contractors out of a total workforce of 80,070 have secure remote access to department systems.
• Department for Work and Pensions: 7,536 out of 117,670 staff been equipped with an approved laptop computer that enables secure remote access.
• MoJ: 4,000 out of 88,690 staff have encrypted computers and related equipment that allows them to work securely from home.
• The Home Office: does not keep a central record of staff who are able or who have permission to work at home.
• Department for Transport: 3,050 out of 19,460 staff have remote or home working access to department systems.
• Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform: 1,800 out of 3,510 staff have access to flexible computing technology.
• Department of Health: 2,082 computer user accounts out of 2,270 staff that are equipped for remote access to the department's IT systems.
• Department for Food, the Environment and Rural Affairs: All 11,520 staff are registered and equipped for remote access and 2,000 used this facility in July 2008.
• Department for International Development: 1,798 out of 2,467 staff have been issued with laptops instead of a desktop PC to allow them to work from home on a regular or ad hoc basis.
• Department for Children, Schools and Families: 1,670 out of 3,340 staff have home working access.
• Department for Communities and Local Government: 891 out of 2,940 staff have full remote access to the department's IT infrastructure.
• Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills: all 870 staff have laptops, which allows them to work from home.
• The Treasury: 564 out of 1,160 staff are able to access the department's IT systems from home.
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office: 510 out of 5,880 staff have full or limited remote access to the department's IT infrastructure.
• Department for Culture, Media and Sport: 85 out of 480 staff are either authorised to work from home or equipped for remote access.
• Government Equalities Office: 25 out of 90 staff have taken advantage of limited availability of encrypted laptops for remote secure access.
• Northern Ireland Office: 18 out of 130 staff have access to department IT systems at home.