FOI ref: FOI-2024-2077
Correction
The attachment was updated on 16 August 2024 as the FTE figures for February and April 2024 have been corrected.
You asked
I'm requesting a daily breakdown of data that shows how many ONS staff have attended each of our sites (most importantly Newport, Titchfield and London) over the last year. Preferably raw (and non-disclosive) data that we can interpret, but failing that the following would be acceptable – again over a 12 month period:
- Number of unique ONS staff attending each site each day
- Number of unique ONS staff who have attended a site at least twice in a week
We said
Thank you for your request.
Question 1:
Please see the associated download named 'Office attendance records by ONS site.pdf' showing attendance per site daily for the period 29 May 2023 to 21 June 2024. This data has been created from security access control systems at ONS.
Please be aware that the monthly staff count figures given for Newport, Titchfield and London are not equal to the number of people required to meet 40% office attendance, due to localised reasonable adjustments, carer's passports and additional flexibilities that are in place for eligible colleagues at the team level.
Question 2:
Please see 'FOI-2024-2077 - UK Statistics Authority staff attendance at Newport and Titchfield sites twice or more per week from August 2023 to July 2024.pdf', which addresses your second question.
Please note that if the aim of this FOI request is to assess compliance with the ONS hybrid working policy security system data showing those who have attended the office twice or more per week does not provide a reliable measure of compliance with the ONS hybrid policy for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the policy expects that staff attend the office for at least 40% of their working time over a four-week accounting period. Some colleagues would opt to complete this in bulk at the beginning of this period for example, rather than consistently attend the office twice per week.
Secondly, security gate swipe data would not measure compliance with the policy from those who have localised reasonable adjustments in place, carer’s passports, and additional flexibilities in place for eligible colleagues at a team level. Finally, some colleagues complete their office time away from ONS sites on official business. Newport and Titchfield colleagues who have visited the London office as part of their office attendance quota would also be missing, as a manual pass check is conducted.
You should take these points into consideration when reviewing the data supplied.
This data supplied does not include the London office. This is because we do not hold swipe data in London at the level of granularity requested, as we only receive (and are controllers for) the data required for our functions. 2 Marsham St is a shared government site, which is owned and managed by the Government Property Agency (GPA).
In case it is useful context, security gate swipe data for the London site would provide very poor and almost meaningless data to measure office attendance. A number of colleagues attending the London site on a regular basis do not have swipe card access and are admitted by security following a manual pass-check. This is because there are a certain number of colleagues who regularly work from the London site, but have their official site as Newport and Titchfield.
Headcount data for London for the purposes of property management is conducted manually and does not have the level of detail required to produce analysis showing the number of colleagues attending the office more than twice per week.