To ask the Minister of Finance whether he will review working from home arrangements for the Northern Ireland Civil Service post pandemic.

Mr Murphy

With your permission, a LeasCheann Comhairle, I will group questions 2 and 11. I place on record my continued thanks to civil servants for their hard work and flexibility in response to the challenges of delivering services during the pandemic. At very short notice this time last year, the majority of civil servants moved from the office to homeworking as the pandemic emerged. I am encouraged by feedback from my Department on the positive impact of homeworking on many of our staff, who feel that they now have a better balance between work and home commitments. Responsibility for the performance and productivity of all staff, including those who work from home, rests with managers in each of the Departments. Staff in the Department of Finance have continued to deliver essential services while also delivering to thousands of businesses unprecedented support through COVID funding, including rates relief, a range of business grants and support for airports and hospices. The Civil Service will adopt a blended approach to home and remote working, which will depend on the individual departmental requirements and job role. A remote and homeworking policy is being developed in consultation with trade unions. The Department also recently announced plans for a number of Civil Service regional hubs. These will enable civil servants to work closer to home, reduce travel time and promote regional economic balance.

Ms Bunting

With your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will take this opportunity to condemn the attack on a police officer. It is important, as a member of the Policing Board, that I do that and send our best wishes to her and her family. It is clear that working from home cannot continue ad infinitum. Given the need to open the economy and instil confidence in the community, and given the extent of the vaccine roll-out, should the Civil Service not lead by example and return those who do not fall into a vulnerable category to the workplace as quickly as possible?

Mr Murphy

First, any return to the workplace will be guided by the health advice that the Executive as a whole will agree. The advice from the Department of Health and the health adviser in the Executive is still to work from home where possible, so that continues to be the case. Undoubtedly, the whole experience of the pandemic has accelerated a trend that was already developing in how people work, and we have to be mindful of that. Civil servants can now work in a blended situation: they can be at home, in a regional location or in headquarters. It will not significantly affect the Civil Service footprint in Belfast, for instance, as there will still be a requirement for a large number of civil servants to work out of offices. However, it changes the office accommodation requirements, and we have a responsibility to look at that. We must look at not only the benefit for individual civil servants and workers but what the Executive are required to spend on the Civil Service estate. If the nature of work is changing and technology allows more remote working, we have a duty, for the public services that we want to support, to ensure that we are not spending money on the Civil Service estate that is not required. It is a balance between all those things. No doubt, people will go back to work in the not too distant future, but we have to ensure that it is in line with the health advice and that the new way of working will, ultimately, be of benefit to public finances and individual workers.

Mr Murphy

It is very hard to quantify savings. If you put out a figure, that becomes the target. This is much more than that, as the Member identified. It is about the responsibilities that people have at home and in caring situations. Perhaps, in the longer term, it will be about the willingness of people to apply for jobs that are Belfast-based and involve travelling for an hour or two a day, and it could be even more than that if they are coming from further west to work five days a week in a Department's headquarters. I have no doubt that this will change the nature of work. It will open it up more to women to whom, unfortunately, the primary caring function falls and to people who live in the further regions of this part of Ireland and who are further away from their workplace than those living in the urban centres. It will open up a lot of opportunities. It will, undoubtedly, allow us to rationalise the Civil Service and save more. It should yield savings, but that is not the primary driver behind all of this. We want a more effective and productive working environment. Regional hubs will not only allow that and contribute more to local economies but allow an exchange between local government and central government personnel to create more space for joined-up and connected government. There are real benefits to come from this. I am loath to put figures on it. It will undoubtedly yield savings, but its major importance relates to how people work and how a greater variety of people, particularly women and those who are under-represented in the Civil Service, can access potential opportunities.

Mr Butler

What analysis has the Department done on levels of sickness-related distress and on whether homeworking or remote working have improved productivity?

Mr Murphy

The Department of Finance has done an analysis, or survey, of its staff. There has been an overwhelmingly positive response to homeworking across most of the Department's workforce. I am sure that that is not unique and is reflected across the Civil Service in general. With the challenges of the pandemic and lockdown, people have recognised the fact that blended working, where some work can be done from home, some in the regional hubs that will be developed, some in headquarters or some in city or town centres, affords staff more scope to manage their responsibilities. It has been positive and positively received. It accelerates lessons that were already beginning to be learned, and it will probably accelerate a response to those lessons in future workforce planning.

Ms Armstrong

The Minister mentioned hubs. How many people will the Connect2 hubs hold?

Mr Murphy

That will depend, because they are all different set-ups. The Member may be more familiar with the hub in Downpatrick, which we intend to do at an earlier stage. Some are in development phase, and we are talking to some councils about future development. The initial 10 hubs in the roll-out are almost ready to go or expected to be ready within two years, I think. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, because the hubs not only allow people to work closer to home, save travel time and help to reduce carbon emissions but allow them to contribute to their local economy and manage their work-life balance better given that they are not spending as much time in cars. We will look forward to assisting and improving productivity. I expect that, when we get those 10 hubs in place, we will look at more in the future. Each one is different and probably has different accommodation requirements. They are based on studies from where people were travelling into Belfast. That focused attention on where the first run was needed. There will not be fixed desks, so it is not an alternative place to work. It is somewhere where people can work for a number of days a week.

Mr O'Toole

I agree with the Minister on the value of flexible working. I do not agree with the original questioner that it is something of which we should be suspicious. Will it be tied into the broader and more urgent look at the structural flaws in the Civil Service? We know that 80% of our senior civil servants are over 50, for example, and that we have high vacancy rates. How will any measures be linked to the workforce strategy to give us the Civil Service that we need in the years to come? I am sure that the Minister will not disagree that there are major, serious structural flaws in our Civil Service.

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Beggs)

That goes way beyond the issue of working from home, but the Minister may wish to comment.

Mr Murphy

It is a very broad issue, and we could spend a long time talking about it. These things are interrelated and complement each other. In the longer term, people will not need to spend a couple of hours a day travelling to work, which will allow more people and a greater variety of people, such as those who are under-represented in the Civil Service, to apply for jobs. We are looking closely at all the issues that the Member mentioned. There is a need, and a number of reports, such as the RHI report and the Audit Office report, looked at the make-up and capacity of the Civil Service. Significant work needs to be done, and we intend to bring that forward. These developments will assist with that, because they open up more opportunities for a broader range of people to be employed in the Civil Service.