No substitute for working alongside one another

THE fourth anniversary of the first lockdown has just passed. I don’t need to remind anyone how severe that time was for Londoners, or how — as Tube trains stood empty and Oxford Street heard no foot fall — we all had to change how we lived and worked.

Today, our lives have mostly returned to how they were before, yet some parts of society still bear the marks of our lockdowns. One of those places is the civil service and the wider public sector, where there is one lockdown habit remaining which we must act on: people are working from home too much. Being in the office — working alongside colleagues — can help people be more productive and help them overcome complex tasks more efficiently, and is particularly helpful for the development of more junior staff.

I am doing everything I can to create the best kind of environment for all civil servants to do their job in the best possible way. This includes reasonable arrangements to work from home.

But four years on, there are still team members who only come in on the odd day. I can’t believe I have to make this point, but we are not in lockdown anymore, and we should all be spending more time working together in the office.

This isn’t ideological, this is practical: there are clear benefits to people working in the office — not just for the Government as a whole but for individual civil servants and their well-being and careers.

That’s why I recently set an expectation for staff to be in the office at least 60 per cent of the time, which brings the civil service in line with the private sector. It’s also why I am considering how this expectation can be a part of our senior staff’s obligations. London is leading the way, with occupancy above 60 per cent in all Whitehall government offices. And my department, the Cabinet Office, is almost

at 100 per cent. Clearly, the in-person benefits are being seized in the capital.

But wherever they are based, civil servants have no reason not to go into the office. I visited one of the civil service sites in Sheffield recently where we announced last week that we are well ahead in delivering our target of moving 22,000 jobs to other towns and cities by 2027.

Hubs like these are thriving centres of great collaborative activity. This work ensures that there is a workplace for every civil servant to use. Working from home should always be the exception and not the rule. Some civil servants have been languishing in lockdown habits for too long. It’s time to get back to the office — on the Tube, on the train, on the bike or on foot — and start living in 2024.

• John Glen is minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General