Treasury tracks staff clocking on in back-to-office drive

TREASURY staff have been warned their security passes are being monitored to make sure they go into the office.

Under new work-from-home restrictions, staff attendance will be tracked using data from the access gates at the front of the main building in Whitehall.

Civil servants are expected to be at their office desks some of the time, but Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, has stopped short of ordering them back for a specific number of days per week, as other departments have done.

Although many government buildings have gates that require a security pass, the Treasury is thought to be the first department to inform employees that their attendance will be recorded using this method.

Although the Treasury says it has seen a “significant increase” in office occupancy, it also appears to have accepted that its staff will partially work from home indefinitely.

Job adverts for senior positions currently stipulate that applicants will be required in the office between 40 and 60 per cent of the time.

Jacob Rees-mogg, a Cabinet Office minister, has made it clear that he expects government employees to return to the office, with departments and agencies that do not use their floor space in central London being warned they could lose it.

Departments are expected to work towards “full capacity” in the office, which is defined as a full office rather than all employees in work every day, since most divisions now have more staff than desks.

The Treasury’s latest clampdown on working from home comes after the Department for Education told its employees they were expected to work from the office at least four days a week.

A government source told The Daily Telegraph: “It has taken far too long for departments to shake off their lockdown mindset but taxpayers and voters should take heart at reports that Whitehall is taking this seriously.”

A league table of departments with the most absent employees shows that just a quarter of staff at the Department for Education were going into work each day.

The figures, compiled last month, were similar at the Department for Work and Pensions and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

In contrast, the Department for International Trade has almost three quarters of staff at their desks every day.

A government spokesman said office occupancy “continues to be closely monitored”.