Home working policy 1011/2025

FOI Reference: 1011/2025

Request

Please provide details of your current policies and practices relating to home working (also referred to as remote working or agile working). I am particularly interested in how these policies apply across all roles and grades within your force, including both police officers and police staff.

Specifically, I would appreciate the following:

1. A copy of your home working or agile working policy, including any eligibility criteria and guidance on implementation.
2. Details of any roles or grades that are excluded from home working arrangements.
3. Information on how home working is monitored or managed (e.g., performance expectations, IT support, data security).
4. Any documentation outlining the frequency or limits of home working (e.g., number of days per week/month).
5. Any differences in home working provisions between police officers and police staff.

If any of the requested information is already publicly available, please direct me to the relevant webpage or publication.

Response:

Section 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 places two duties on public authorities. Unless exemptions apply, the first duty at Section 1(1)(a) is to confirm or deny whether the information specified in a request is held. The second duty at Section 1(1)(b) is to disclose information that has been confirmed as being held.

Where exemptions are relied upon Section 17 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 requires -Powys Police, when refusing to provide such information (because the information is exempt) to provide you the applicant with a notice which:

(a) states that fact,

(b) specifies the exemption in question and

(c) states (if that would not otherwise be apparent) why the exemption applies.

I can confirm that Dyfed-Powys Police does hold the information requested, however the following exemption has been applied to the information you have requested in Question 1:

Section 21 – Information reasonably accessible by other means:

(1) Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than under section 1 is exempt information.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)—

(a) information may be reasonably accessible to the applicant even though it is accessible only on payment, and

(b) information is to be taken to be reasonably accessible to the applicant if it is information which the public authority or any other person is obliged by or under any enactment to communicate (otherwise than by making the information available for inspection) to members of the public on request, whether free of charge or on payment.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (1), information which is held by a public authority and does not fall within subsection (2)(b) is not to be regarded as reasonably accessible to the applicant merely because the information is available from the public authority itself on request, unless the information is made available in accordance with the authority’s publication scheme and any payment required is specified in, or determined in accordance with, the scheme.”

The information requested relating to Q1 can be accessed via the following hyperlink –

Smarter Working Policy | Dyfed-Powys Police

Response Q2

Police Staff roles categories as either Fixed or Fixed Operational are excluded from home working. A Fixed worker is someone who must remain at a particular workplace for majority of their working time. A Fixed Operational worker is someone whose role could not ordinarily accommodate home working due to its operational nature.

Response Q3

The SMARTER Working procedure document explains how performance will be monitored together with details about Security & Data Protection provisions.

Response Q4

The SMARTER Working procedure details the working arrangements for Agile Workers (i.e. those working at home or from different locations).

Response Q5

The SMARTER Working procedure outlines that Agile Working is for Police Staff only.

It should be noted that as a result of the systems adopted by Dyfed-Powys Police in relation to the recording of such information that the information released may or may not be accurate.

(This is a response under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and disclosed on 17/10/2025)