FDA Assistant General Secretary Lauren Crowley gave oral evidence to the House of Lords Home-based Working Committee for its inquiry on remote and hybrid working.

Crowley appeared on a panel alongside TUC Equalities and Young Workers Policy Officer Alice Arkwright and UNISON’s Director of Political Strategy Maggi Ferncombe. The Committee had requested that the FDA provided evidence to the inquiry following the publication of the union’s report into hybrid working, ‘The future of office work in the civil service’ – a response to the government’s 60% office attendance mandate.

The report is informed by a survey of FDA members which received more than 7,000 responses, with 78% of respondents believing that the 60% attendance mandate had not been beneficial. Since the report’s publication, the FDA has been engaging with individual departments about its findings.

Outlining the benefits of hybrid working for the civil service, Crowley told the Committee:

“Hybrid working is one tool that could be really useful to the government’s Places for Growth Strategy, its strategy to increase the number of civil service roles outside of London… It enables them to widen the radius of the pool of people that they are able to recruit from, without having to significantly increase the physical footprint of the government estate. So, it is something that can help support increased diversity in talent outside of London.”

Discussing the FDA’s research into hybrid working, which also included a report on the issue from 2022, Crowley said:

“One of the areas where there was a particular difference in the members was around disability, there was a disparity between our disabled and non-disabled members, showing that disabled employees were much more likely to face difficulties as a result of a blanket attendance quota.

“Where the original research had shown us that hybrid working was very much welcomed by our members and helping our members, particularly those that are disabled, to work better and more effectively within government departments, a blanket mandate significantly worsened their work-life balance.”

Crowley added that it was “particularly disappointing that this government has continued that approach without dialogue with the unions or without any evidence that can see”, arguing that in the absence of such evidence “we have to conclude that the policy was really driven for political reasons”, citing “significant pressure from the media in particular”.