Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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117. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the steps taken by her Department to support the implementation of the national remote work strategy Making Remote Work; the approximate number or percentage of staff within her Department who have access to cloud services for remote videoconferencing and the capacity to work remotely; her plans to increase this percentage; the framework under which procurement for this is managed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45375/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Civil Service departments and offices have been working in line with Government Covid-19 guidance, which provided for home working to continue where possible. As an essential service, staff in my Department have continued, throughout the pandemic, to work both on site in office premises and remotely to deliver for our customers across our nationwide network of offices.

The number of staff who are working remotely at any one time across all regions is approximately 3,300 or 50% of the total staffing number and has remained relatively constant through the Covid-19 restrictions.

My Department acted early in the pandemic to provide secure remote access to 100% of its staff, and this significantly changed how staff are working.

Early in the pandemic, the contract provider in place for my Department was unable to procure laptops to meet the Department's demand and the Department issued a new tender in line with procurement guidelines for another provider.

As such, all relevant DSP staff can access appropriate DSP systems securely on the Departments IT network to carry out the duties of their role and access to video conferencing.

The Government has now published Ireland’s plan for the next phase of the response to the pandemic - COVID-19: Reframing the Challenge, Continuing Our Recovery and Reconnecting. Under this plan, the advice to work from home unless absolutely essential to attend the workplace was withdrawn. This means that people could return to the workplace on a phased basis from 20th of September.

The Government has also confirmed its support of blended working in the Civil Service and, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is developing an overarching central framework to support consistency of implementation of blended working across the Civil Service.

This framework will inform the development of organization-level blended working policies tailored to the specific requirements of each Department/Office, whilst ensuring a consistency of approach across key policy areas. In conjunction with this framework an application process is also currently being developed to allow staff to apply for blended working into the future.

In line with this approach, it is intended, subject to business needs and individual suitability, to make blended working part of the way that my Department will work on a more permanent basis. To this end, my Department will develop a blended working policy based on the framework being developed by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and will aim to implement this policy in early 2022.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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118. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the steps taken by agencies under the remit of her Department to support the implementation of the national remote work strategy Making Remote Work; the approximate number or percentage of staff within these agencies who have access to cloud services for remote videoconferencing and the capacity to work remotely; if there are plans to increase this percentage; the framework under which procurement for this is managed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45392/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Civil Service departments and offices have been working in line with Government Covid-19 guidance, which provided for home working to continue where possible.

The Government has now published Ireland’s plan for the next phase of the response to the pandemic - COVID-19: Reframing the Challenge, Continuing Our Recovery and Reconnecting. Under this plan, the advice to work from home unless absolutely essential to attend the workplace was withdrawn. This means that people could return to the workplace on a phased basis from 20th of September.

The Government has also confirmed its support of blended working in the Civil Service and, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is developing an overarching central framework to support consistency of implementation of blended working across the Civil Service.

This framework will inform the development of organization-level blended working policies tailored to the specific requirements of each Department/Office, whilst ensuring a consistency of approach across key policy areas.

The position in relation to the relevant bodies under the aegis of my Department is as follows:

Citizens Information Board (CIB): During the pandemic period, all employees of CIB worked remotely from home. In line with the DPER approach to supporting blended working in the public service, CIB has committed to developing a remote working policy in line with central arrangements.

Pensions Authority: All Pensions Authority employees continue to work primarily from home pending further guidance from DPER regarding a return to office. Currently all employees have full remote access to the Authority's data systems and all have access for video conferencing and online working.

Where required, employees return to the office to undertake essential IT, administration and facilities management work. The Pensions Authority is currently developing it’s longer-term remote working policy and procedures in line with DPER guidance as it becomes available.