Civil servants must head the charge back to city offices
IF Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to see workers get back to work in our empty city centres, he should start with the 445,000 civil servants we employ with our taxes. Some 89,000 of these are based in London and could help revive the depleted capital. Yet over 95 per cent of civil servants have been working from home.
The cost to the UK economy of office workers not going back to work has been estimated at almost £ 500billion. Thousands of small businesses depend on busy city centres, from sandwich bars to newsagents, dry cleaners to pubs. Pret a Manger has announced 2,800 job cuts as it closes 30 city centre stores.
Trains and buses cannot continue to run half- empty. The rail industry has been virtually nationalised since the beginning of the pandemic. Rail fares normally bring in £ 1billion a month, but taxpayers cannot continue to subsidise a service lacking commuters.
It is difficult to tell private enterprises what to do and the sad reality of lockdown has meant that many companies are choosing to save money on office rents in uncertain times by keeping workers at home.
The Government’s ultra- cautious Covid response has simply hastened a process enabled by rapidly improving computer networks. It may well be city centres will never be the same again but that would have a savage impact not just on jobs but our hubs of civilisation.
REDUCED public transport systems would have a knock- on effect on the viability of live entertainment and our cultural institutions.
Clearly the stakes are very high and yet if Boris struggles to convince private companies to rush back to work, at least he should have a stronger say over public sector workers. MPs are being told to go back to parliament this week and the halfmillion- strong army of civil servants should follow suit. Too many MPs are happy to stay at home and deliver their questions by Zoom video calls. “The Chamber is dead right now,” says former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith. “Unless you are in the protected sector you should be in the House.”
The same should go for the host of civil servants in offices radiating out from Westminster. But last month just two dozen workers were seen entering the Department for Education that has desks for 2,000 workers. Less than 100 turned up at the Home Office that in total employs over 30,000 people.
Council offices are equally empty with many town halls closed. Yet again, the Government is putting out mixed messages, telling us all to get back to work, but instructing its own staff to carry on working from home for fear of a second spike of Covid- 19. Instead it should be the other way round – our civil servants should be leading the charge back to offices.
Too often trade unions drag their feet by instructing their members to stay at home. Dave Penman, head of the FDA union representing senior civil servants, fears only “30 or 40 per cent” of his members will be back at their office desks by the end of the year.
“Ministers are increasingly sounding like dinosaurs,” he said. “The genie won’t fit back in the bottle – best not to try.”
Trade Union Congress general secretary Frances O’Grady says many workers now want a “better balance of office and home- based working”. Yet by advising this, she is condemning thousands of city centre workers to unemployment. It’s amazingly short- sighted, because if these service workers aren’t contributing their taxes then where’s the money coming from to pay the public sector? If civil servants don’t get back to work, they will undermine the economy that pays their wages.
Some trade unions are even threatening “industrial unrest” if the Government compels them to return to their offices.
“If the Government or any employer started forcing people back to work,” warned Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, “if you have no other option and people’s health and safety is at risk, of course we would be prepared to consider industrial action.”
FORTY years ago, US President Ronald Reagan was faced with a similar stand- off when 11,000 striking air traffic controllers refused to go back to work. His solution was to set them a 48- hour deadline and then sack them all. He stuck to his guns and replaced the union air controllers with others.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that but Boris may well need to set a deadline for civil servants to bring life back to our deserted city centres. Otherwise they may well find themselves losing their jobs as taxpayer funding dries up. They’ll only have themselves to blame.
‘ Without the taxes, where’s the money to pay the public sector?’