Working abroad
Case reference FOI2026/00910
Received 13 August 2026
Published 10 September 2026
Request
Please treat this as a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I am seeking information about employees and elected members who have requested permission to work, access council systems, or otherwise carry out council business while outside the United Kingdom. Please provide the following information for the period 1 January 2022 to the date this request is received: The number of applications or requests made by employees and elected members to work from outside the UK, broken down by calendar year. For each year, the number of requests which were: Approved Refused Withdrawn Pending, if applicable A list of the countries from which employees or elected members were approved to work, access council systems, or undertake council duties during this period. Please show: The calendar year The country The number of approved requests relating to that country The number of individuals involved in the approved requests, broken down by year where held. Please distinguish between: Employees Elected members Other categories of worker, if relevant The total number of days for which overseas working was approved, broken down by year. If this cannot be provided, please provide the longest period approved for an individual request in each year. Please provide the information electronically, preferably in a spreadsheet or CSV format for any tabular data.
Response
Response
Employees
The Council can confirm that information prior to 2025 is not held, as the process for recording these requests was implemented in 2025.
2022 – No data held
2023 – No data held
2024 – No data held
2025:
Approved – 5
Refused – No data
Withdrawn – 0
Pending – 0
2026:
Approved – 4
Refused – 2
Withdrawn – 0
Pending – 1
Approved countries – Employees
2025:
Spain – 3 approved requests involving 3 employees
Germany – 1 approved request involving 1 employee
Chile – 1 approved request involving 1 employee
2026:
South Africa – 1 approved request involving 1 employee
France – 1 approved request involving 1 employee
Chile – 2 approved requests involving 2 employees
Overseas working periods – Employees
The longest period approved for an individual request was:
2025 – 168 working days
2026 – 24 working days
Elected Members
The Council has only logged the number of elected members accessing their accounts abroad since the relevant policy came into force. No further logs were kept before 2026 as the policy was not enforced before then.
In 2026, 12 members requested access to their emails while abroad. Of these:
Approved – 7
Rejected – 5
Approved countries recorded for 2026:
Bulgaria – 1
Canada – 1
France – 2
Germany – 2
Greece – 1
Hungary – 1
Italy – 1
Republic of Ireland – 1
Romania – 1
United States of America – 1
Rejected countries recorded for 2026:
Australia – 2
Saudi Arabia – 1
United States of America – 1
Zambia – 2
Documents
This is Oxford City 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.