Desk-shy civil servants ordered to spend at least 60 per cent of their time in the office
DESK-shy civil servants have been ordered to spend at least 60 per cent of their time in the office.
Mandarins sent an edict to Whitehall staff yesterday following ministers’ despair at the working-from-home culture.
The letter from department bosses — seen by The Sun — said coming in boosted “collaboration, innovation and a sense of community”.
It added: “Ministers therefore asked us to set and implement an expectation of increased office-based working.”
But the memo falls short of the mass return to work some critics have been calling for.
MP Jacob Rees-Mogg told The Sun: “I’m glad to see they’re finally picking up on an issue I was working on 15 months ago.
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“Working from home has a massive impact on public sector productivity, which is at its lowest since 1997, and means higher taxes because you are paying people more to do the same job.
“So I welcome this move.
”However, we should work to get back to normal.”
Most Whitehall departments have around 60-70 per cent of desks occupied during the week.
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Some are consistently lagging behind, such as the Foreign Office which last week was 57 per cent.