Education Scotland information on home working patterns: FOI release

Information requested

Information on the policy for staff working from home.

The number of employees in your organisation and, of these, the number able to perform their work remotely (i.e., not those who are front-line workers) and the number who have started returning to in person work.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, what has your organisational policy to employees working from home vs coming into work in person?

Please explain this in terms of change to previous policy and how this has changed over the course of the pandemic. For example: “Prior to the pandemic, most staff were expected to work in person (except for managers who were able to work from home 2 days a week). When the pandemic started, all staff were sent to work from home, until August when some staff began to return to the office”.

Did your organisation have enough of the basic equipment needed for transitioning to remote working during the pandemic? If not – how long did it take to provide everyone with the basic equipment (laptops) they required and implement remote-working?

Did you provide further equipment at any point e.g. laptop stands, chairs, desks etc? If so what did you provide and was this based on a specified value (if so, how much was spent per remote worker)?

Has your organisation created a policy for reversing the option for working from home and/or creating new hybrid working patterns, or returning fully to ‘pre-pandemic’ practices?

If yes, please provide details of your policy including how many days a week you will be aiming to have employees working in person and by what specific date or date range you are aiming to achieve this.

Has this changed or been delayed considering the government briefing on 29 November regarding the new Omicron Covid variant and updated advice?

Did you consult your employees about their attitudes to returning to in person work? If so, please provide details of their responses (e.g. did you create a survey; if so, how many people responded and what % were in favour or against returning to the office?)

Have you implemented any changes to pay for those working from home and if so, please describe the average change in pay rates and who it applies to.

Were these changes implemented immediately or are you, for example, keeping current staff on the same pay but starting new remote employees on a lower rate?

On what rational have you made changes to pay?

Response

Please see below the information you have requested.

The number of employees in your organisation and, of these, the number able to perform their work remotely (i.e., not those who are front-line workers) and the number who have started returning to in person work.

Number of Employees	Of which are able to work from home	Of which have returned to the office on a regular basis.
377	377	We do not currently track this information*

* While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the information you have requested is not held as we do not currently track this.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that Education Scotland does not have the information you have requested.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, what has your organisational policy to employees working from home vs coming into work in person?

Our advice to staff from March 2020 until the end of August 2021 was to work from home. At the end of August 2021 we introduced a two week orientation period to allow staff to return to offices and satisfy themselves that health and safety protocols were in place. A small number of staff returned to offices from the end of August 2021 until the end of November 2021. From the beginning of December 2021, staff were again advised to work from home. Prior to the pandemic, informal arrangements were in place to allow staff to work from home from time to time and there was also a formal home working policy in place. A total of 30 employees were officially classed as homeworkers’ at this time.

Please explain this in terms of change to previous policy and how this has changed over the course of the pandemic. For example: “Prior to the pandemic, most staff were expected to work in person (except for managers who were able to work from home 2 days a week). When the pandemic started, all staff were sent to work from home, until August when some staff began to return to the office”.

Please see answer above.

Did your organisation have enough of the basic equipment needed for transitioning to remote working during the pandemic? If not – how long did it take to provide everyone with the basic equipment (laptops) they required and implement remote-working?

Everyone had a laptop when we first went into lockdown in March 2020. After that additional kit (monitors, keyboards, mice) was provided as and when it was requested.

Did you provide further equipment at any point e.g. laptop stands, chairs, desks etc? If so what did you provide and was this based on a specified value (if so, how much was spent per remote worker)?

The breakdown of equipment and their totals are shown in the attached Annex. The spreadsheet shows the data totals of all equipment requested, all of the items provided assisted colleagues in working from home.

The equipment was procured as per individual requirements and requests.

In the first instance, we re-purposed equipment from our offices. This was not a cost saving exercise, it was more a need to provide colleagues with the correct equipment in a timely manner. This is reflected in the (Education Scotland) average costs. The average cost per person on providing equipment to support them while working from home was £157.86.

Has your organisation created a policy for reversing the option for working from home and/or creating new hybrid working patterns, or returning fully to ‘pre-pandemic’ practices?

No, we expect staff to work on a hybrid basis (when it is safe to do so) but we have no formal policy. For the time being all staff continue to work from home.

If yes, please provide details of your policy including how many days a week you will be aiming to have employees working in person and by what specific date or date range you are aiming to achieve this.

Not applicable.

Has this changed or been delayed considering the government briefing on 29 November regarding the new Omicron Covid variant and updated advice?

Yes, we are again advising all staff to work from home.

Did you consult your employees about their attitudes to returning to in person work? If so, please provide details of their responses (e.g. did you create a survey; if so, how many people responded and what % were in favour or against returning to the office?)

In April and May 2021, we asked all line managers to have conversations with their team members using a survey template to capture their thoughts on how they might work in the future. This survey’s purpose was to find out more about colleagues’ thoughts on what working in Education Scotland has felt like and what it might look like post-pandemic. A total of 228 colleagues completed the survey.

Prior to COVID-19 restrictions, the majority of our staff rarely worked from home if at all. In our survey the majority of staff expressed a desire to either keep working from home (32%) or have homeworking making up some or most of their working week (59% in total). A small number of colleagues wish to go back to their previous ways of working (4%) or be office based for the majority of time (1%).

The vast majority of survey respondents were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their current homeworking arrangements (96% in total), with increases in levels of collaboration and a better work/life balance cited as some of the advantages of this way of working.

Have you implemented any changes to pay for those working from home and if so, please describe the average change in pay rates and who it applies to.

Were these changes implemented immediately or are you, for example, keeping current staff on the same pay but starting new remote employees on a lower rate?

On what rational have you made changes to pay?

There have been no changes to pay implemented to staff while working from home.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI - 202100258987 - Information Released - Annex

File type

Excel document

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13.6 kB