Staff ditch WFH and rush back to desks for Rees-Mogg visit

...but next day Scots HQ is largely deserted

CIVIL servants abandoned home working and rushed back to their desks at the UK Government’s Scottish headquarters when a senior minister was visiting.

Thousands of staff made sure they were in the office for last week’s visit by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency Minister, who has called for an end to home working.

But the Queen Elizabeth House office in Edinburgh appeared to be largely deserted again yesterday, with many staff opting to work from home again.

Mr Rees-Mogg has been leading the push for UK Government departments to return to pre-Covid office working, and was said to be impressed by the efforts of the Edinburgh staff.

He believes it is important for taxpayers to see that the Government is working properly. During visits to offices in England last month, he left a note on empty desks, telling civil servants: ‘Sorry you were out when I visited. I look forward to seeing you in the office very soon.’

One member of staff at Queen Elizabeth House, which has capacity for 3,000 workers, said: ‘There was a very good turnout of staff. He was quite impressed.

‘People are going in much more now, it is much busier than it was because it was like a ghost ship during the pandemic. They are enjoying being back. It is a lot busier now and the desks are full.

It is night and day compared to the last two years.’

But Queen Elizabeth House yesterday appeared to be much quieter as civil servants opted to stay away from the office on a Friday.

While pockets of the building did appear to be staffed, it was far from full. Dozens of empty desks with computers shut off could be seen from the street.

In some parts of the building entire rows were unoccupied and still bore green signs to indicate they had been cleaned.

The building was clearly not at capacity and over a two-hour period yesterday morning, only 165 people were counted coming and going from the office’s main entrance. By lunchtime, the canteen area visible from the street was dotted with empty tables.

A report published by the Scottish Government yesterday showed that one in three Scots is still working from home for at least part of the week. The survey, covering the period from April 19 to May 1, showed that 67 per cent of the workforce were working from a designated office space, while 21 per cent were hybrid working, where they split their time between home and the office, and 8 per cent were entirely based at home.

The industry sectors with the lowest proportion of the workforce working from a designated workspace were information and communication, at 11.6 per cent, and scientific and technical activities, at 33.9 per cent.

Following reports of a tiny proportion of Scottish civil servants working from offices, Nicola Sturgeon backed hybrid working.

She said: ‘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 but also productivity, so I don’t think we will necessarily go back to how things were pre-pandemic. Where exactly that settles remains to be seen. But there are certainly many more people working in the office for the Scottish Government than has been the case for the last few years.’

Asked whether there have been negative consequences from home working, she said: ‘I don’t think that’s the case. I think in many respects, I’m generalising obviously, you will always come up with examples that would be counter to this – but I think in general terms people have actually been surprised at how working from home at least part of the time actually can improve productivity.

‘So I don’t think it is right to draw those conclusions at all.’

‘He was quite impressed’