Civil servants in the Office for National Statistics have voted to bring an end to a two-year dispute over office attendance rules after agreeing a move away from individual targets.
Under the new agreement, individual 40% attendance targets will be scrapped, with office attendance instead based on “clear, purposeful need”. An overall organisational attendance target of 40% will replace the individual quotas.
Attendance will still be monitored, but disciplinary action for not attending the office will only apply in cases of “persistent and unreasonable non-compliance”.
Extra flexibility will be provided for staff with caring responsibilities, workplace adjustments, contractual homeworking arrangements and those recruited during periods before attendance quotas were introduced.
Senior leaders will be asked to maintain higher levels of office attendance.
An ONS spokesperson said: “We want to see more staff coming into our offices, while also recognising the unique challenges that the ONS has faced. This settlement therefore marks an important moment as we continue to restore confidence in the organisation.
“This agreement does not remove expectations around colleagues attending the office. Instead, it provides clarity and a more mature framework that supports effective collaboration and productivity, reflecting the wide variety of work that our staff undertake.
“We are therefore confident that this will lead to increased office attendance overall.”
The agreement follows a two-year dispute with unions, which started after ONS management insisted that staff spend 40% of their working hours in the office.
Staff at the statistics department have been taking action short of strike since spring 2024, which initially consisted of ignoring the 40% rule, before escalating to work-to-rule in August that year, and then zero office attendance since August 2025.
The unions argued that many officials had applied for and accepted roles on the basis that remote and flexible working would be a permanent feature, and that flexible arrangements were central to managing work-life balance, caring responsibilities and the cost of work.
PCS said it balloted its members who work at the ONS on the dispute resolution deal from 16-30 March, with 77% giving their backing to the agreement on a 71% turnout.
The union said the agreement represents a pragmatic compromise that delivers most of its campaign aims, while also resetting industrial relations at the ONS.
Fran Heathcote, the union’s general secretary, said: “This is a landmark win for our members and shows what can be achieved when workers stand together. For the first time, a rigid office attendance mandate has been broken and replaced with a more sensible, flexible approach based on what actually works.
“This has been a long campaign and reaching a deal members could accept reflects the determination of PCS members at ONS, the hard work of their reps, and the value of trade unionism.”
Prospect deputy general secretary Steve Thomas said: “This marks the end of what has been a protracted dispute, and it is testament to the power of negotiation that we have got here.
“What has always been clear is that a one-size-fits-all approach to office attendance does not work and imposing mandatory targets that do not reflect operational needs is counterproductive.
“Each workplace and the roles within it are different. It is vital that employers work with unions to develop a policy which is both fair and delivers the necessary outcomes.”
PCS said the breakthrough came after a leadership shakeup last year which saw Darren Tierney come in from the Cabinet Office as the ONS’s new permanent secretary in August 2025. The union said it has seen a significant shift in approach to dispute negotiations which has led to a set of jointly agreed principles on hybrid working.
In an interview in November, Tierney told CSW that he was “really keen to reset the relationship” with PCS and Prospect and said the "tone" of the discussions with the unions had been “really warm”.
“I’m confident we’ll reach a sensible conclusion with them, hopefully quite soon, which will help us break the deadlock,” he added. “At the end of the day, what I said to them – and I really mean – is that we come at these things from different angles, but we want the same thing. We all want staff from the ONS to be well treated, and to want to work in the ONS and give of their best”.