• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Transform Scotland

Transform Scotland

  • About Us
        • Our team
        • Our members
        • Contact us
        • About us

  • Our Priorities
        • Safe places for active travel
        • Zero-carbon connectivity
        • Zero-carbon public transport
        • Zero-carbon investment
        • Fair transport pricing
        • Our priorties

  • Our Work
        • Publications
        • Our projects
        • #lovemybus
        • Consultancy
        • Cross-Party Group
        • Our work

  • Latest
        • News
        • Alerts
        • Events
        • Latest

  • Join us
  • Donate

New action required to embed the benefits of distributed working

22 July 2021

by Transform Scotland

FacebookTweetEmailLinkedIn

We’ve today published an update on our ‘Connected Recovery’ report of June 2020, highlighting whether there has been progress in embedding the benefits of distributed working necessitated by the pandemic lockdowns.

The June 2020 report had recommended that:

  1. The Scottish Government, Scottish Public Bodies & the Scottish Parliament demonstrate their own commitment to distributed working.
  2. The Scottish & UK governments follow the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendation to prioritise investment in digital infrastructure over new, high-carbon road construction.
  3. Public transport operators provide flexible season tickets to address increasingly flexible working patterns.
  4. The Scottish Government work with COSLA to develop best-practice guidelines and HR policies as part of normalising remote working.

Today’s new paper (July 2021) argues that:

“Avoiding unnecessary travel is the first step in improving the sustainability of transport. As well as being being beneficial from a climate change perspective, reducing travel also results in cost savings for businesses. The benefits of reducing business travel are two-fold: not only is the cost of transport eliminated, but so is the cost of unproductive time lost to travelling. And reducing the need for employees to commute to work every day has been shown to increase productivity, and reduce absenteeism, staff turnover, and inequalities. Coronavirus restrictions for most of 2020 forced companies of all shapes and sizes to quickly adapt to a ‘no travel’ world where staff worked from home and held virtual meetings.”

The paper finds that inadequate progress has been made over the past year in “enabling the digital commute”, and makes seven new recommendations:

  1. HR departments in the public sector should ensure that a location of “distributed/home working, but requiring [frequent/regular/occasional] travel to [office location]” is standard for all jobs that can support it. It will also require updating internal working practices and management training as discussed in the Connected Recovery report.
  2. The Scottish Government & Scottish Parliament should develop procedures for running both internal and external meetings with an online participation option as standard, and publish these procedures as best practice examples.
  3. The Scottish Government should work with COSLA to develop best-practice guidelines and HR policies as part of normalising remote working, and make these available to all employers under the Open Government Licence.
  4. The Scottish Government should publish regular updates on the R100 Programme, including the number of premises eligible for SBVS vouchers, the number approved, and the number of installations under the scheme.
  5. The UK Government should be more ambitious in its timescale to infill the mobile network in areas where there is currently no coverage.
  6. ScotRail should extend the validity of their Flexipass to 3 months and the eligibility to include Avanti West Coast and LNER.
  7. Bus and light rail operators without flexible discounted ticket bundles should introduce them, and all operators should ensure the validity of such tickets is a minimum of 3 months.

Downloads

'Connected Recovery one year on' paper (July 2021)

'Connected Recovery' report (June 2020)

Featured NewsDigital Public transport

Share

FacebookTweetEmailLinkedIn
Back to Latest

Latest posts

Our work over the past 12 months | 2023 Annual Report published

20 September 2023

We’ve today published our new Annual Report, which reflects on our work and activities for the year 2022/23. In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and the ongoing climate emergency…

Read more

Featured NewsPublic transport Traffic

Edinburgh Tram Inquiry: Lessons learned

19 September 2023

The long-awaited inquiry into the the delays and costs of the first phase of the Edinburgh Tram project has today been published. The inquiry scrutinised the reasons for the project…

Read more

NewsPublic transport

Fair Fares? An opportunity for innovative policymaking

12 September 2023

Transform policy advisor Tom Flanagan reports on the Government’s progress in delivering its commitments to improve the affordability and accessibility of public transport through fares.

Read more

Featured NewsPolicy Public transport

Join our team as a communications assistant

11 September 2023

We are looking for a Communications Assistant to join our team! This is a voluntary role and would require a commitment of approx. 3-7 hours per week. Main duties include:…

Read more

News

Sign up for email updates

We'll send you news on our work, plus other updates about how you can get involved in Scotland's campaign for sustainable transport.

  • Terms & Conditions
  • Cookies policy
  • Credits
  • Accessibility
  • Work for us
  • Leave a legacy
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

© 2023 Transform Scotland is a registered Scottish charity (SC041516)


Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!