The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been named as one of the top 30 employers for working families in 2020.

Work-life balance charity Working Families announced its annual ranking of the family-friendly employers today, listing the ONS among the best employers in the UK for those balancing the responsibilities of family life with a career.

The ONS ordinarily operates from major offices in Newport (south Wales) and Titchfield (Hampshire) and employs over 4,300 people. The Newport office acts as a base for more than 2,300 employees and has seen the ONS recognised as one of south Wales' biggest employers, while the Titchfield site hosts over 1,000 members of staff, with others based across the UK.

Organisations up for the award were scored on four areas to build a picture of their flexible and family-friendly policies and practices that support mothers, fathers and carers. These include how flexible working is built into organisational culture, the development and implementation of flexible working policies, consistent practice, and keeping evidence and statistics on the impacts of flexible and family-friendly working in the organisation.

Philippa Bonay, Director of People and Business Services at the ONS said:

"This is an excellent result, reflecting the hard work and commitment of so many colleagues to continually improve how we support parents and carers.  We have further risen to meet the challenges of recent months, and our exceptional collective response to working more flexibly has provided the opportunity to further build on this success.

"It's been a very challenging year for everyone at the ONS as we've rapidly adapted the way we work to produce vital information on COVID-19 and its impact on our population and economy.

"Our ability to do that successfully when many of us have to juggle work with extra family commitments is a reflection of the support we've been able to provide our staff. It's great to see that formally recognised with inclusion in this list of the top employers for working families."

See the full top 30 list here.

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