Number of day's CEO was present in Herefordshire in 2021-22
Case reference FOI2023/00403
Published 27 March 2023
Request
Please can you provide the total number of days that the CEO has been physically present in Herefordshire in the 2021 and 2022 calendar years (and 2023 for Jan-Feb).
The CEO does not have to have been here all day, it could just be part of a day. The critical element to the request is the physical presence or here in person. I cannot see physical attendance or presence data on the website.
Response
Please can you provide the total number of days that the CEO has been physically present in Herefordshire in the 2021 and 2022 calendar years (and 2023 for Jan-Feb).
The CEO does not have to have been here all day, it could just be part of a day. The critical element to the request is the physical presence or here in person. I cannot see physical attendance or presence data on the website.
Officers are not required to clock into or out of an office, and therefore no central record of where an employee is working from is held. The council's flexible working approach places an emphasis on what an employee does not where they do it from, and this is monitored at all levels for performance management purposes. Officers may choose to record where they are working from in their electronic calendars, but this is often for the purposes of desk or room bookings and therefore may be an incomplete or an inaccurate reflection of their whereabouts i.e. they may spend the day working in the office in an area that did not require prior booking so they may not have recorded anywhere that they were physically in a council office. It should also be noted that during the autumn / winter of 2021 the council followed the government's recommendation to work from home to stop the spread of Covid-19. In 2022 renovations have also been taking place in council buildings and that has had an impact on the number of staff who can work from the offices at any one time; it has only been since August 2022 that these restrictions have started to be lifted.
The current Chief Executive has only been in post since May 2021. Since May 2021 to 28 February 2023 his electronic calendar has recorded that he worked from Herefordshire 326 days. It should be noted that the number of days recorded for working from Herefordshire will be an under-report for the reasons set out above. These figures exclude annual leave entitlement and bank holidays.
Data on the number of days spent working in Herefordshire or remotely is not held for the previous post holder.
Documents
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