The federal government does not know the number of employees currently working from home.. Yves PBOParliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux. .This is according to Budget Officer Yves Giroux, who testified at the Senate National Finance committee that he inquired about this matter but did not receive a response..“We have heard from a few ministers who indicated there were no studies to prove or deny public employees are more or less productive teleworking,” said Giroux..“There seems to be a great lack of information in this regard.”.In a directive last Dec. 15, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier said federal employees would be permitted to work from home “40% to 60% of their regular schedule” up to three days a week..“We are not going back to the way things used to be,” Fortier told reporters..“We are reimagining our workplace.”.Sen. Claude Carignan (QC) said he sought data on the scope of the practice..“I asked how many civil servants were working from home by department, by province and by municipality,” said Carignan..“I fell off my chair when I got the response.”.“The government does not keep track of the number of public employees working remotely,” said Carignan..“I find it hard to see how the government in an effort to be efficient can come to an agreement to work from home without knowing how many civil servants are teleworking and where they are located.”.Giroux said he wanted the same figures..“We have not sent a formal request for information, but we put the question informally to the Treasury Board and several departments,” said Giroux..“We were given the same answer as you were. There is no comprehensive data across the public service on the proportion of employees who work from home.”.In a submission last June 10 to the Commons Government Operations committee, the department of Public Works said federal computer technicians counted 240,000 remote internet hookups to servers..“Prior to the pandemic, there was an average of 20,000 simultaneous remote connections,” testified then-Minister Filomena Tassi..In an Inquiry of Ministry earlier tabled in the Commons, Cabinet said daily vacancy rates in federal offices ran as high as 70% or more..At agencies like a National Film Board office in Winnipeg, only a tenth of the staff worked in person..At a Canadian Space Agency office in Gatineau, QC, about 23% of employees worked in person based on “average daily attendance.”.According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the department of Public Works, in a 2022 report, claimed it could save $1.3 billion a year by cutting its current office space by 40%. .“Infrastructure is the second largest expense to the Government of Canada after salary expenses,” said the report Evaluation of the Office Portfolio..No federal buildings have been sold to date as a result of the work-from-home policy.
