Updated: 1 September 2020
The Diocesan Office is currently closed. The Bishop Woodford House Retreat and Conference Centre has also been closed, more about this can be read here.
What this means for staff
Employees of the Ely Diocesan Board of Finance (The ‘Ely’ Office) have been instructed to work from home until further notice.
Access to the office by Diocesan staff is strictly for essential use only, governed by internal staff processes that have been made available via the staff intranet and direct email communication.
Should you need to contact a member of staff, please can we ask that you do so by email in the first instance. Staff contact details can be found on the Diocesan website here - https://www.elydiocese.org/about/contact-us/.
What this means for visitors and those booked onto training courses or stays at the Retreat centre
The Diocesan Retreat Centre has been closed, more about this can be read here.
All those booked onto courses prior to the office closure will be contacted directly, with future courses planned as online only options.
What contingency plans has the Diocesan office made?
All essential business functions will continue without interruption.
The first step was to ensure that all staff were able to work from their own homes. This ensured that they could access their emails, the Diocesan database and the Diocesan servers. We also ensured staff with access to specialised software (such as the Finance team), were able to test this process to ensure business could continue as usual – bills, stipends and salaries will continue to be paid!
Within individual teams and between the various Heads of Department, measures have also been put in place to ensure colleagues can easily communicate with one another.
Staff have been instructed to inform their ‘external’ colleagues of any changes or cancellations to meetings as a result of the change to the working conditions, so as to mitigate for any inconvenience caused.
Access to office landlines will be impacted. Staff will ensure however that appropriate answerphone messages or call-diverts are put in place to help address this. Similarly, staff will have restricted access to printers and mail and the types of office facilities one would expect, so best efforts will be made to allow for this, while asking for your understanding that there will be changes and some likely delays to typical working patterns.
Staff are able to access the building on a pre-booked basis for absolutely essential use only. Risk assessments and guidance notes on the safe access to the offices have been communicated to all staff via email and the internal staff intranet.
Conclusion
You will appreciate this remains a fluid and changing situation. We shall continue to act in accordance with advice from Public Health England and so these arrangements may be in place for some days, or even many weeks.
While every effort has been made to ensure colleagues are able to work from home and business, as far as possible, will be able to continue as normal, it is inevitable that there will be some impact. Many of our staff are parents and grandparents and in the event schools close or family members need additional care and support, we must expect staff availability to be restricted. It is only proper for us to support this and show our understanding.
As circumstances change, we shall endeavour to update our working arrangements, so please keep an eye on the website for any further notifications.
Thank you for your patience during this time.
Best
Paul
Paul Evans
Diocesan Secretary
Diocese of Ely