Parliamentary Counsel Office Directorate hybrid working team agreements: FOI release

Information requested

The Team Agreement for the Parliamentary Counsel Office.

Response

Our Team Agreement is as follows:

PCO business need (or why we should all spend time in the office)

PCO’s vision is to be a collegiate, happy and vibrant Centre of Legislative Excellence—

• with our own identity, ethos and values
• committed to drafting legislation of the highest quality
• engaged with others and influential in the law making process
• with clear roles, responsibilities and career paths
• working flexibly in supportive and resilient teams
• with the tools, workspace, corporate support and other resources needed to do our jobs
• with a culture and ethos which helps develops skills, allows us to look after ourselves and each other, respects diversity and gives us all the opportunity to thrive, enjoy our work and be successful”

PCO directorate plan

While the functional aspects of that vision can be delivered remotely, the overall quality of our service is fundamentally linked to those additional aspects that relate to our identity, our culture and our ethos and we believe that those aspects are diminished (and will degrade over time) if we are not together, in person, a reasonable proportion of our working time. Our personal and collective responsibility for those additional aspects represent a tangible and longstanding PCO business need. Indeed, it is incorporated into each of our objectives.

Accordingly, we believe that we can best achieve our vision (and our business needs) only if, collectively and individually, we commit to coming together to work on a regular and predictable basis. Doing so allows for us to have confidence that the time we spend in the office will be meaningful and different from working at home.

Further, though our new virtual communication tools are excellent and make our ability to work better, we believe that the PCO Values of Creativity and Teamwork are best supported if there are also in-person interactions on a regular basis. These interactions allow for spontaneity and serendipity and give us chances to help and support one another. True hybrid working is an opportunity to combine the best of both.

We draw support for these beliefs from the time before the pandemic, the enforced period of home working, the PCO 40% trial, the hybrid working report, our individual discussions and the experience of other drafting offices.

About FOI

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

FOI 202500495367 - Information Released - Annex

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