Technology will be used to provide reports broken down by agency, directorate and team

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The Ministry of Justice has signed a £4m deal for sensors to monitor and report back on occupancy of office space.

According to newly published commercial documents, on 1 February 2023 the MoJ will enter into a two-year engagement with FM:Systems – the US-headquartered owner of the OccupEye monitoring technology suite. It is understood that about £1m of the contract’s value relates to the ministry – which has worked with OccupEye since 2014 – and its agencies. The remaining £3m will be spent by other government departments.

The contract states that it covers the provision of a “a web-based reporting solution to measure and report on desk and room utilisation”. 

“[This] will be provided by a physical sensor recording heat and motion and those sensors then sending this information to the cloud where an agreed set of reports provide the occupancy data,” it added. 

The MoJ and the other government entities that make use of the contract will require sensors to provide reports of office-space utilisation broken down by department, directorate and individual teams, as well as by “date, time, asset type, asset, zone, floor, [and] building”.

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“The solution must be designed in such a way that it can be effective without recourse to building infrastructure such as data cabling and WiFi in buildings where this isn’t available,” the contract said. “The sensors must be capable of reporting whether desks, touchdown spaces and meeting rooms and occupied or not… [and] recording the number of people entering and leaving an enclosed work area – such as a floor of a building – and be able to send alerts when predefined occupancy levels are reached.”

The document added that “the flexibility inherent” in both the technology and the commercial agreement means that the “the MoJ can specify ongoing implementation plans that will then be met” by the supplier.

Once its initial two-year term expires on 31 January 2025, the ministry has the option of extending the deal by two further 12-month periods.

The award of the MoJ-led contract comes a few months after the Department Health and Social Care signed a contract for use of FM:Systems sensors and reporting platforms. The deal with the DHSC will be worth up to £300,000.

Union leaders have criticised the use of technology to monitor occupancy rates of government offices; speaking in September, PCS chief Mark Serwotka described the use of computer and WiFi logins to keep tabs on occupancy it as a “worrying, Big Brother-style development that we fear could be used to victimise our members who work from home rather than in the office”.

A spokesperson for the MoJ said: “The OccupEye technology is widely used across government and the private sector to help organisations understand how their office spaces are used. MoJ has used it since 2014. It will never be a tool for monitoring individuals’ office attendance.”