Fife Council: Work starts to get thousands of staff back into offices after pandemic - but with flexible working

The local authority has been battling to weather the storm over the last two years and has faced huge challenges in terms of finances, staff absence and service disruption ever since the first COVID-19 cases surfaced in March 2020.

Mr Grimmond confirmed that work to get thousands of employees back into offices via flexible working arrangements is continuing apace as the council aims to return to some semblance of normality.

He said: “In terms of the general position, all services are now operating but we are experiencing significant pressure across a number of service areas and that’s a combination of beginning to tackle the backlog of work that has accumulated through the pandemic and demanded growing as a consequence of the pandemic.

“There have been high levels of welfare support, crisis grants and COVID isolation support as well as particular pressure on health and social care.

“We’re also still experiencing high COVID absence levels. These peaked in January and have been largely plateauing, although we’re now slowly seeing a decrease which, while they’ve not resulted in any service failure, are requiring continued to prioritisation of services to ensure sustainability in the short term.

“We’re also in the process of the planned adoption of flexible work styles.

“That will take place over the next two to three months while still maintaining social distancing and the base measures that are required in an office environment.

“That’s going to take a bit of time to establish that new norm through the spring and into the summer.”

Mr Grimmond added that the council is anticipating the Scottish Government’s publication of its revised strategic framework on COVID - potentially next week.

“The revised strategic framework will hopefully further articulate an approach to living and working with COVID and that will help us as an organisation to identify any further adjustments that we need to make and further normalise work and service provision,” he concluded.

“There is a sense we’re beginning to emerge from the acute phase of the pandemic.”

Thank you for reading this article on our free-to-read website. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

Please consider purchasing a subscription to our print newspaper to help fund our trusted, fact-checked journalism.

https://www.localsubsplus.co.uk/nord/dm/FFP/V