WFH Whitehall loses 5,000 desks in under 3 years

THE scale of Whitehall’s working from home culture is laid bare today as figures reveal that one in five desks has been removed recently.

There were more than 27,000 desks installed across the main government buildings before Covid struck.

But there are now fewer than 22,000, a fall of more than 5,000 in less than three years, an audit by the Daily Mail has discovered.

The drops came as departments closed offices to save cash or limit contact during the pandemic.

Yet many of the Whitehall ministries’ headquarters are still less than two-thirds full even as their size has shrunk and the workforce has grown, and long after socialdistancing curbs were lifted.

It means thousands of civil servants are allowed to continue working from home several days a week, despite public complaints about backlogs and poor service, with ‘hybrid’ policies introduced during lockdown now permanent.

Former minister Jacob ReesMogg, who while at the Cabinet Office led the drive to get staff back to their desks, said: ‘The cur

‘Should get off beds and back to work’

rent situation is extremely expensive and inefficient.’

He added: ‘The best way to reduce civil service numbers is to work out if people don’t come into the office then they might not be needed at all.’ Mr Rees-Mogg called on ministers to ‘keep the pressure up’ on reducing the workforce, saying that Boris Johnson’s target of cutting 91,000 civil service posts – since dropped by Rishi Sunak – should be reinstated.

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, added: ‘If civil servants can’t deliver from home, they should get off their beds and get back to their desks.’

Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from 14 of the biggest ministries show they had 27,004 desks in January 2020, just before Covid struck. By November 2022 that figure had fallen to 21,641, a drop of 5,363.

The biggest fall (1,342) was at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which went from 2,333 to 991 at its Caxton House head office. The DWP – recently criticised for ‘unacceptably high’ fraud and error in benefits payments totalling £8.6billion last year – explained: ‘In 2022, three floors were decommissioned (Ground, Floor 1 and Floor 7) and DWP are working with the Government Property Agency to evaluate subletting options for the floors.’

However, the latest office occupancy figures published by the Cabinet Office show that only 61 per cent of DWP staff were in the building at the start of December, falling to just 29 per cent in the week of the rail strike.

The proportion is calculated by dividing the daily number of staff in the building by its current capacity, so shows that a reduction in desks has not led to a more crowded workplace. Meanwhile, a recent Parliamentary answer revealed that Department for Business staff can ‘only work up to a maximum of 60 per cent of their time at home over a fourweek period, on the condition that business needs are prioritised’.

Current job adverts for apprenticeships state that even at HM Treasury, ‘ we are moving to a model of working where our people split their time working in the office and working from home’.

A government spokesman said: ‘There is total agreement across government on there being clear benefits from face-to-face, collaborative working. That is why we continue to see building occupancy at pre-pandemic levels.’

THE full extent of Whitehall’s failure to return to the office after Covid is exposed today by a damning Mail investigation.

Many government departments are still less than two-thirds full and despite an increase of 13,000 London-based civil servant jobs since the start of the pandemic, 5,000 desks have been removed.

In Labour-run Wales, barely 10 per cent of officials have been at their desks in recent months. These numbers show that working from home several days a week has become normalised, despite appalling backlogs and complaints of poor service.

Routine home- working is bad for productivity and for the teamwork on which industry and creativity thrive. It also reduces the opportunity for younger staff to learn on the job from colleagues.

It is crucial for our economic recovery that white-collar Britain gets back to the workplace. Instead of backsliding, the Civil Service should be leading by example.