Civil servants demand right to work abroad
Rees-mogg rails against ‘lazy’ union leaders after conference motion raises prospect of more strikes
Senior civil servants are demanding the right to work from abroad, as the battle with ministers over homeworking rages on. The bosses of Whitehall departments will insist that staff are allowed to work overseas “for personal reasons” rather than having to take annual leave. The senior civil servants’ FDA union yesterday passed a motion insisting that their members should be eligible for “international remote working” for the benefit of their “family life”.
BORIS JOHNSON unveiled plans to cut 91,000 civil service jobs last night as Whitehall opened a new front in their battle with ministers over working from home by seeking the right to work from abroad.
The Prime Minister said the savings made from cutting “swollen” Whitehall departments would be ploughed back into helping people with the cost of living crisis, hinting it may be used to fund future tax cuts.
At a Cabinet away day in Stoke-ontrent yesterday he gave each member of his top team one month to come up with plans for slimming down their own department as part of a drive to cut the overall number of officials by a fifth.
“We have got to cut the cost of government to reduce the cost of living. Every pound the government pre-empts from the taxpayer is money they can spend on their own priorities, on their own lives”, he told the Daily Mail.
The new policy, which No 10 says will shave £3.5billion a year off the cost of running Whitehall, will take the civil service back to its pre-brexit staffing levels in 2016.
Mr Johnson said the public “deserve better” from those bodies like the DVLA and Passport Office that have failed to clear huge post-pandemic backlogs.
He said more civil servants “need to get back into the habit of getting into the office” in a swipe at the continuation of the work from home culture.
His pledge comes with the bosses of government departments set to insist that staff are allowed to work overseas “for personal reasons” rather than having to take annual leave.
The bosses of Whitehall departments will insist that staff are allowed to work overseas “for personal reasons” rather than having to take annual leave.
The annual conference of the senior civil servants’ FDA union passed a motion yesterday insisting that their members should be eligible for “international remote working” for the benefit of their “family life”.
Jacob Rees-mogg, the minister for government efficiency, said the “extreme” demand had “given the game away” about how “lazy” union leaders have become.
One Government source described the demands as “insane”.
The move, which raises the prospect of public sector staff going on strike, puts them on a direct collision course with ministers, who are insisting on a return to the office now that Covid restrictions are long gone.
The Daily Telegraph understands that ministers will reject any attempt by the union to push the boundaries of working from home.
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, launched a direct attack on Mr Rees-mogg at the union’s annual delegate
‘This culture war has to stop. You do your job and let the management of the civil service get on with theirs’
conference, accusing him of “Orwellian” behaviour after he left notes on workers’ desks noting their absence from the office.
He said: “This culture war against the civil service has to stop … you do your job and let the management of the civil service get on with theirs.”
A series of motions passed by the FDA conference amounted to a manifesto for home working, in direct contradiction of Government policy.
The union’s official stance is now that “work is no longer a place, but what is done”, and that it will “resist indiscriminate demands from the government for civil servants’ return to office-based working”.
The union’s executive committee will now press the Cabinet Office to review the working from abroad guidance circulated to departments “to ensure that critical flexibility is not lost”.