Departments are working with the Government Property Agency to ensure that in future all civil service organisations can meet the 60% office attendance mandate, the government has said.
The Department of Business and Trade today published the government response to the House of Lords Home-based Working Committee’s report on remote working.
The report, published in November, had warned the government there may be a conflict between mandating 60% office attendance in the civil service and plans to shrink the office estate. Successive governments have reduced the size of the government’s office estate – it was cut by a third between 2010 and 2019 – and the current administration has pledged to close 11 London office buildings, with 10 Victoria Street the latest to shut and Caxton House soon to follow.
In its response to the report, the government said the 60% approach “offers the best balance for most employees” and “allows teams and departments to maximise the benefits of hybrid working and get the best from working together”.
The response notes that in certain circumstances, this may not be achievable where departmental headcount exceeds available estate capacity. The government said in such cases, “departments are working closely with the Government Property Agency to ensure that future estate provision is sufficient to support hybrid working with the aim of enabling the 60% attendance minimum”.
In November 2023, heads of departments collectively agreed to introduce the mandate, which requires civil servants to spend at least 60% of their work hours at a government building or on official business, with exceptions to adapt to individual needs. Not all departments have been able to fully meet the mandate due to office space constraints, and the Department for Work and Pensions, for example, only moved to 60% across all grades in September.
The Home-based Working select committee said in its November 2025 report that government “should continue reviewing the relationship between its 60% office attendance mandate for civil servants and its other policies, particularly reductions in the size of its office estate”. It said “these policies may conflict with one another, and if they cannot be reconciled, the government may need to decide which it wants to prioritise”.
In its response, the government said that when the mandate was set, “departments considered estate capacity both for their individual departments and where these are co-located, and found there to be sufficient capacity in the estate”.
It added: “As we deliver greater efficiency and transformation in the civil service, the government recognises that having an estate that reflects the requirements of a smaller civil service and modern public services will be essential. We will continue to review the estate requirements based on workforce planning and developing portfolio plans to meet those needs and deliver departmental business.”
In a further explanation of the reasoning for the 60% policy, the government said it “recognises working flexibly is essential in supporting the civil service priority of ensuring continued, effective and productive delivery of the work carried out by civil servants across our full range of services”, and that it believes some forms of work “are best done in the office and some activities are better supported when colleagues are together”.
The Lords report also asked the government to lead by example by ensuring good hybrid working practices within the civil service – focusing in particular on ensuring that in-person attendance achieves collaborative benefits. It suggested government departments could: encourage their teams to set anchor days; ensure their offices are designed with adequate spaces for meetings; and consider the organisation and design of government offices carefully when civil service jobs are relocated.
In response to this recommendation, the government said a wide range of approaches to hybrid working are already adopted across the civil service due to the diverse nature of roles. It also “recognises there is more we can do to deliver great places to work and ensure we are providing civil servants with a range of spaces and modern technologies that best support them to be effective in delivering and serving the UK public”.
The response adds that the government is continuing to seek and listen to feedback from civil servants to help inform the design of government offices “to ensure we have the right blend of settings and services that can support civil servants to complete a range of activities”.
It also says that, through the GPA, the government "will maintain our commitment to proactively address emerging challenges and develop the necessary enablers, support, and guidance to ensure the civil service can continue to transform and modernise”.
Read CSW's deep dive into what officials think of the 60% office-working rule