FOI reference: FOI-2024-2022
You asked
I'm interested to know how many employees from ONS contracted COVID-19 . I'm particularly interested in the people who meet the public like survey officers and possibly the census staff.
We said
Thank you for your recent request under the Freedom of Information Act.
We do not hold information on the number of instances where staff contracted COVID-19. We do, however, hold the number of staff absences where COVID-19 was cited as the reason.
The number of employees who had at least one period of sickness absence, where COVID-19 was the cited reason (shown with our Headcount at the end of the period for added context) can be found in the associated download named 'UK Statistics Authority absences due to COVID-19 April 2020 - March 2024'.
With regards to our Social Survey Interviewers, we altered our approach to the collection of Social Survey data at the height of the pandemic, moving to a telephone based interview instead of face-to-face, and suspending data collection with international travellers at airports, docks and railway stations. This helped to protect both ONS colleagues, and members of the public.
With regards to Census, the only public facing Census staff were the Census Field Force, who were separate to our main workforce. They were recruited by a 3rd party Agency, on different and very specific short-term appointments. The processing of their employment, including data, was managed by the 3rd party Agency. Their data is consequently not held on our core management information system, and we do not hold data that details how many individuals had a period of sickness absence, during their short term appointment with us, where COVID-19 was cited as the reason.