Fórsa’s Civil Service Division has issued clarification on blended working arrangements to members in the Probation Services, on foot of technical queries.

Civil servants have the right to apply for remote or blended working under a framework agreed between unions and the Department of Public Expenditure and reform.

Fórsa negotiated the blended working policy across the civil service on the following basis:

• An ‘in office’ day is a day that workers are not working from home. Therefore, if workers are required to attend in another office, in court, or in any other location that is not their home, it is considered an ‘in office’ day. There are no exceptions to this
• Annual leave has no impact on the number of days workers are required to be in office. For example, if the blended working agreement usually requires a worker to be in the office two days a week and that workers happens to be on annual leave on your normal in-office days, they do not ‘owe’ in-office days when they return
• This also applies to unplanned leave, including, for example, sick leave and force majeure leave
• There may be very occasional instances where an attendance pattern may need to be altered. This does not affect the general operation of any blended working arrangement.

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