Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, of the 1922 Committee, said: 'There are severe signs of the civil service not being as effective as it should be – and I think that's because for the bulk of the period they need to be back at work.'īut the FDA civil service union accused Mr Rees-Mogg of 'micro-managing'. Staying put: Many are still avoiding the office in favour of their home working set-up Tory MPs urged Boris Johnson and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to 'bang the desk' to get civil servants back into Whitehall. 'To deliver this, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and I urge you to issue a clear message to civil servants in your department to ensure a rapid return to the office.' He also said the figures 'show we have significant progress to make'. In his letter to Cabinet ministers, Mr Rees-Mogg wrote: 'We must continue to accelerate the return of civil servants to office buildings to realise the benefits of face-to-face, collaborative working and the wider benefits for the economy.
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The figures suggest that a plea issued by Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Steve Barclay three months ago for departments to return to full occupancy fell on deaf ears.
Other departments used data from pass readers. The Foreign Office, a key department responding to Russia's aggression in Ukraine, saw just 31 per cent of staff in its King Charles Street building that week.Īnd despite the cost of living crisis, the Department for Work and Pensions had just 27 per cent of its civil servants at their desks.Īstonishingly, the figures could overestimate the numbers in the office as some departments recorded the figures by asking security staff to click people in – and then loosely adjusted the figures to account for lunch breaks. The Department for Education had just 25 per cent of staff in the office in the week beginning April 4 – although officials said the school holidays meant it was not representative.ĭespite multiple pressures on the Home Office, including migrant crossings and processing visas for Ukrainian refugees, on average only 42 per cent of staff were at their workplace. While the number of staff at their desks in Whitehall has increased in recent weeks, it remains well below pre-pandemic levels despite the end of Covid curbs. In a letter to the Secretaries of State, Mr Rees-Mogg, the minister for government efficiency, said 'significant progress' was needed to get offices back to full capacity.
'Ministers' obsession with ending flexible working and micro-managing the civil service increasingly just looks vindictive.'īoris Johnson today urged ministers to get their officials back behind their Whitehall desks. Ministers can't point to productivity losses, which is why it's always anonymous sources making the insulting accusations. Several key ministries – including the Foreign Office and Department for Education – had on average less than a third of staff in the office over the first week in April, data shows.īut Mr Penman today complained: 'There is no rationale for this. Two years on from the start of the Covid pandemic, many government departments are not even at half their capacity.
Unions reacted with fury today as ministers were ordered to end Whitehall's work from home culture - after official figures revealed just how few staff are back in the office.ĭave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA, accused Jacob Rees-Mogg of being 'vindictive' and obsessed with ending flexible working after the minister demanded mandarins return to Westminster.Ĭritics of home working claim it makes staff less productive and creative, damages career prospects and harms the economies of town centres.
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