Council officers working outside of the United Kingdom
Case reference FOI2026/01689
Received 10 August 2026
Published 7 September 2026
Request
I am writing under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information from your authority:
This is an information request relating to council officers being given permission to work from outside the United Kingdom. By United Kingdom, I refer to Northern Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland, not including the crown dependencies.
Please include the following information, for the 2023/24, 2024/25, 2025/26 financial years:
* The number of staff, per year, given permission to work from abroad.
* For each member of staff granted permission, please provide:
* their pay band,
&
* the country they have been allowed to work from,
&
* the length of time that they have been allowed to work for and,
&
* the dates they were allowed to work from abroad.
* The longest time a member of staff has been granted permission to work from abroad and what country they went to.
* The highest ranking officer that was allowed to work from abroad.
* The current number of people working from abroad and where they are.
Response
Thank you for your recent request under the Freedom of Information Act.
Please find the answers to your queries below:
I am writing under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information from your authority:
This is an information request relating to council officers being given permission to work from outside the United Kingdom. By United Kingdom, I refer to Northern Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland, not including the crown dependencies.
Please include the following information, for the 2023/24, 2024/25, 2025/26 financial years:
* The number of staff, per year, given permission to work from abroad
2025/26 – 5
2024/25 – 2
2023/24 – 1
* For each member of staff granted permission, please provide:
* their pay band,
&
* the country they have been allowed to work from,
&
* the length of time that they have been allowed to work for and,
&
* the dates they were allowed to work from abroad.
2025/26 –
One Band 10 employee, given permission to work from family home in Brazil for two weeks – dates 14th to 29th March 2026.
One Band 6 employee given permission to work from family home in Lithuania for two weeks – dates 24th June to 3rd July 2025.
One Band 7 employee given permission to work from family home in Portugal for six weeks – dates 19th July to 31st August 2025.
One Band 7 employee given permission to work from family home in France for two weeks – dates 9th August to 20th August 2025.
One Band 7 employee given permission to work from family home in Australia for one month due to family illness – dates 29th October to 28th November 2025.
2024/25 –
One Band 9 employee given permission to work from Portugal during a family holiday, due to an emergency supplier issue that required urgent actions that were required to be completed during the employee’s imminent annual leave – annual leave of one week, dates 16th October to 22nd October 2024.
One Band 7 employee given permission to work from family home in Australia for two weeks due to family illness – dates 11th November to 22nd November 2024.
2023/24 –
One Band 8 employee given permission to work from family home in France for two weeks – dates 18th to 29th December 2023.
N.B. Please note that Band 1 is the lowest available grade / pay point and Band 10 is the highest available grade / pay point.
* The longest time a member of staff has been granted permission to work from abroad and what country they went to.
Six weeks, Portugal.
* The highest ranking officer that was allowed to work from abroad.
Band 10.
* The current number of people working from abroad and where they are.
None.
Yours sincerely,
FOI Team
Guildford Borough Council
Documents
This is Guildford Council's response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.