It’s time to get back to your desks!
Government urged to set example as just 20 pc of staff return to office
PRESSURE is mounting on Scotland’s civil servants to go back to the office after it emerged thousands are still allowed to work from home.
Despite all Covid restrictions being scrapped, an audit found fewer than 1,400 staff had returned to offices capable of holding more than 7,300.
Scores of other government agencies and quangos also say they have no staff working full-time in the office.
But despite concerns that taxpayerfunded government buildings are lying all but empty, the First Minister yesterday
‘A shockingly low number’
backed ‘hybrid working’, claiming it can ‘improve productivity’.
Last week, the Mail counted the number of staff turning up to work at several government offices during a three-hour period at the start of the working day.
Despite now being able to operate at full capacity, fewer than 20 per cent of civil servants returned to work.
Tory Covid recovery spokesman Murdo Fraser said: ‘This seems like a shockingly low number of civil servants to have returned to the office, given that the Scottish Government has supposedly ended all Covid restrictions in their offices.
‘Now, when our town centres are crying out for Scots to return to the workplace, the SNP Government should be setting a good example by encouraging as many of their own staff as possible back to working from its offices.’
At the Scottish Government’s Victoria Quay in Edinburgh, only 351 employees were seen going into the building on Tuesday morning. The offices have a capacity of 2,000.
Atlantic Quay in Glasgow saw only 127 employees return to a building which held 721 before the pandemic. And St Andrew’s House in Edinburgh, which can accommodate 1,600 employees, saw 239 staff – less than 15 per cent of capacity – turn up for work on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, only four of Transport Scotland’s 530 staff are contractually obliged to work in the office, while VisitScotland has 422 of its 598 staff working on a ‘hybrid’ basis.
David Lonsdale, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium voiced concerns for the ‘near quarter of a million jobs’ supported by the sector. ‘There is an urgent need to bring energy and vision to the revival of our retail and high street destinations and actively encourage people to return,’ he said.
Nicola Sturgeon said yesterday: ‘I think we will continue to see people come back into the office [but] I think hybrid working has a lot to commend it, both in terms of quality of life for workers and also productivity.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said there had been ‘a gradual and phased’ approach to staff returning to offices, adding: ‘This is in line with national guidance which highlights the benefits of in-office working alongside home working.’