Rees-Mogg orders review of ‘flexitime’ for Civil Service
JACOB REES-MOGG has ordered a crackdown on Whitehall “flexitime” deals where civil servants work parttime hours on full-time pay, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
Scores of officials in government departments are allowed to decide the hours they work on any given day, under the “flexitime” arrangement.
Mandarins can decide their start and finish times, providing they add up to the Civil Service’s standard working week of 37.5 hours – around five hours less than the national average.
Some have boasted that they freely disappear to the gym for hours and skip the office on Fridays without oversight from managers. But now Mr ReesMogg, the minister for government efficiency, has intervened to demand an official Whitehall-wide review of the system over fears that taxpayer cash is being wasted.
It comes as Tory leadership hopeful Liz Truss has pledged a “war” on Whitehall waste if she becomes prime minister, with working-from-home practices in departments and diversity jobs to be culled. Mr Rees-Mogg said: “I have already encouraged civil servants to come back to the office instead of working from home, with improvements across Whitehall as a result. But while we need some flexibility, I am concerned that too much flexitime will keep civil servants from the office and from doing their best work.
“Working around others is good for everyone and will mean more job satisfaction for civil servants. That is why I am asking the Cabinet Office to report on the extent of flexitime and asking secretaries of state to do the same in their departments.”
It is understood that flexitime is popular among staff in Whitehall departments such as the Department for Transport and the Treasury. It allows them to work, for example, 1pm until 4pm one day, and 10am to 2pm the next with certain core hours.
Despite the generous deal, 12 of the 19 main Whitehall departments were still less than 67 per cent full at the start of July, with just four in 10 officials back behind their desks in the Foreign Office and both the Home Office and HMRC barely half full.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said “the vast majority” of civil servants have different arrangements to flexitime, but it “allows the Civil Service to attract a range of talented and capable people who may have caring responsibilities or disabilities”.