WFH in Whitehall amid exams chaos
JUST half the civil servants at the Department for Education worked from Whitehall last week despite the likelihood of chaos over exam results.
The latest figures show just 50 per cent were in their offices in the week starting August 8, down from 58 per cent the week before.
This is despite yesterday’s A-level results being the first ones held back at schools and colleges since 2019 – with new vocational ‘T-levels’ providing an extra complication.
Official figures also showed that civil servants in the Ministry of Justice and the Treasury were increasingly staying away, at just 63 and 55 per cent.
They make grim reading for Foreign Secretary Liz Truss – just a third of Foreign Office staff were in the office last week, making it the emptiest in Whitehall. This comes after the Tory leadership favourite, who has previously backed flexible working, telling the Daily Mail this month that it was ‘very important’ for staff across the country to get back to the workplace.
Staff at Priti Patel’s Home Office are also in no rush to come in, with just over half attending, despite ongoing concerns about Channel crossings.
Last month the department’s response to the migrant crisis was labelled ‘ineffective and inefficient’ by David Neal, independent chief inspector of Borders and Immigration.
Efficiencies minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has been spearheading a campaign for Government staff to return to the office since April, but the number present over the summer has steadily declined – with his own department at 52 per cent.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘We have been clear that we want office attendance across the civil service consistently back at pre-pandemic levels, and ministers and officials are keeping the machinery of government working ahead of what we know will be a challenging few months.
‘Workplace attendance will be lower in summer as staff take annual leave and with the impact of recent rail strikes, but this has not prevented civil servants delivering public services.’
‘A challenging few months’