Responding to the Department of Employment review of the operation of the right to request remote working, which concludes no legislative change is deemed necessary, Congress social policy officer Dr Laura Bambrick said:
“This two-year review was a requirement of the Act, included at the insistence of unions to ensure the legislation is fit for purpose, following a failed first attempt by the Department to legislate and a very public backlash requiring them to start over.
“The review’s ‘too soon to tell’ conclusion on whether the Act needs amending confirms what unions strongly suspected going into the evaluation process - it was being done to tick a box so that the issues around access to remote can be put to bed.
“Unions and the thousands of people who responded to the review in good faith won’t be fobbed off with an awareness raising campaign and tweaks to the Code of Practice. The genie is out of the bottle on remote working. For too many their right, as currently legislated, is failing to deliver, as the close to 0% success rate for WRC cases taken by employees makes abundantly clear."
