Civil Service - Post Lockdown - Blended Working?

Revenue Audit & Compliance is 2 days office based with one of those days being an 'anchor' day agreed by each section. 3 days WFH. This is all subject to business needs.

Not everywhere. Maybe just for new staff to facilitate training and onboarding.

I finally got around to it - but as 1st October seems to be a kick-off date for official Blended Working for some departments, maybe better that I was lazy 😀

The link to the new survey is https://forms.gle/55tQJ3FcP68Zn2KA7

For those who hadn't come across it before (I also ran a survey in June) this basically collects some data on what each government department and some of the bigger agencies are doing around Blended Working. The framework came out on 31st March, so most places should have their own policy in place by now.

No personal info is collected, don't include any identifying info in answers, please. The last question is free-form text and I'll post up some of the interesting responses here unless asked not to. Or they're defamatory. 🤣

Does anyone know what they mean on the blended working guidebook about not being allowed to work outside of the state except in circumstances where someone resides in Northern Ireland? If I were to move to Northern Ireland or even just go up that way for a few days and work in a family members house would that be ok?

True I probably should let them know. Not sure I’d move there but who knows with property prices and rent prices it might make sense to. Thank you for the reply.

That is mainly what I was concerned about and also being tracked. Not sure where I would find the IT policy, but I’ll try looking for it. Thank you.

They should be doing that (VPN) for all access from outside their own network whether from within the state or not. Assuming bad actors won't appear to be using an Irish IP is just stupid tbh.

There may not be that limitation for customers (users) only staff. They might provide services for people outside the state.

Depending on your role you might need a VPN or you might not.

No idea what the op role or the systems they use. But it's something someone should check if they are planning to work outside the state.

Just got a FAQ doc. Any hours built up from WFH will be wiped when it goes into the next flexi period. I have 4 hours built up because it is a busy time of year so they are going to vanish and it's 4 hours down the drain. Where the heck is our union on this

Your employer's ICT policy will be on their intranet and you probably have a hard copy you signed on your first day there. There's every possibility it doesn't mention remote access at all if it's not been updated since 2020. Why wouldn't you just mail your ICT unit or HR unit (depending on who issues your usage policy), and ask them if you can connect remotely from NI for 3 days? It's not like civil servants don't bring laptops to Brussels or Strasbourg.

Not sure if it is civil service wide, but it covers my whole organisation as it came from central HR. Could be different in other departments depending on what kind of flexi trial they are doing

There’s plenty of people in border areas that might live in NI, but work in ROI (office based). So it sounds like the policy specifically mentioning NI is to ensure those people aren’t excluded

Realistically no one is checking to see where someone is for a ‘few days’

I have worked from NI for short periods with zero problems, and I’m sure there are many more. I took the policy as you can’t be out in an apartment in Spain for 6 months “working from home”

I should also add people in my team have used their work laptops in America, Asia and across Europe. The only issue may be with the Wi-Fi available requiring a sign in page and the vpn set up doesn’t like that