Civil servants should be ordered back to the office, says Jacob Rees-Mogg.
The minister for government efficiency warned cabinet colleagues that they needed to do more, after the vast majority of Whitehall departments were found to be operating at less than half of their normal capacity.
Rees-Mogg told colleagues to monitor staff attendance fortnightly, warning: “We have significant progress to make.”
An audit conducted across Whitehall shows that calls by ministers for civil servants to return to the office have gone largely unheeded almost three months after work-from-home guidance was lifted.
Rees-Mogg has written to all senior ministers demanding that they issue “a clear message” to officials in their departments, telling them that they expect a “rapid” return to the office.
A league table attached to the letter reveals the departments with the fewest staff coming to their London offices as a percentage of total office space. The least occupied is the Department for Education, operating at 25% capacity. The Department for Work and Pensions is running at 27% and HM Revenue & Customs at 33% capacity. The Business department has just 35% of staff in the office, while Levelling Up averages 46%.
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, accused Rees-Mogg of being less interested in “productivity or delivery” than spending time “counting civil servants in and out of buildings”.
