The minister for government efficiency Jacob Rees-Mogg has written to all secretaries of state to instruct them to tell civil servants that they must return to their taxpayer funded offices. Three quarters of government staff are still working from home.
Rees-Mogg insisted yesterday that civil servants receive “a clear message” that it’s time to get back to the office.
According to The Telegraph:
On Monday night, Whitehall sources accused civil servants who refused to return to the office of failing to “pull their weight”, adding that the Covid pandemic could no longer be used as an excuse for staying away from the workplace.
Efforts to get civil servants back to the office have been hampered by unions pushing for further concessions on flexible working.
Mr Rees-Mogg wrote: “Now that we are learning to live with Covid and have lifted all legal restrictions in England, 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.
“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.”
Mr Rees-Mogg has sent ministers a league table that shows how many employees from each government department were going into the office on an average day during the week beginning April 4.
The Department for Education fared worst, with 25 per cent of staff going in each day on average while the rest worked remotely.
It was followed by the Department for Work and Pensions, where 27 per cent came into the office, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, where 31 per cent came in.
There will be huge resistance to this. In my opinion, people will be very reluctant to return to the office, whether it’s in the public or private sector.
It’s a question I often ask people I meet. Are you working from home? Are you looking forward to returning to the office? Overwhelmingly, they answer yes and no. When I ask if they think that it might be unhealthy to work where they live, they look bewildered.
They (the royal they), want us trapped in our homes, working on screens, ordering everything we need, including groceries, on Amazon. We’re being conditioned into a way of life that will make lockdowns all the easier in the future.
