Head of Civil Service should quit over poor performance – not parties
sir – Simon Case, the head of the Civil Service, should lose his job – not as the fall guy for “partygate” (report, May 23) but because of the parlous state of the organisation over which he presides.
Basic services from multiple departments – including the Land Registry, the Passport Office, the DVLA, HMRC, the Courts and Tribunals Service and the Home Office – are all deplorably delayed. If Mr Case isn’t accountable, then who is?
Neil Truelove
Clifton, Bedfordshire
sir – If working from home is so efficient, as is claimed by those who either practise or encourage it, how come it has created a “huge backlog of power-of-attorney cases”, as you report (May 21)?
I have also been waiting for a registration document from the DVLA that I applied for in April 2021, with the massive delay being blamed on the number of staff working from home. Norman Hawkes
Hessle, East Yorkshire sir – I am at a loss to understand how civil servants dealing with passports and powers of attorney (and having very little contact with the public) are still finding excuses to work from home, when many of those in the courts and the judicial system, for example, have worked face to face during the pandemic.
Now that the risk of Covid is far lower, it’s time they got back to work like the rest of us.
Heather Remblance
Gloucester
sir – The Office of the Public Guardian had a recorded message admitting that the processing of powers of attorney for 330,000 people had been delayed due to staff “working from home”.
However, no doubt following pressure from higher up the food chain, it has changed this message and denied that home working has caused the delays. Similar denials are being rolled out by the Passport Office and the DVLA. Yet as Jacob Rees-mogg says, it seems unlikely to be entirely a coincidence. Why won’t the Civil Service panjandrums recognise this? George Kelly
Buckingham
sir – Surely it tells us something that your pages have been full of stories of failing government departments – yet no similar letters have been published about the commercial sector.
Nick Kester
Wattisfield, Suffolk
sir – Civil servants who refuse to return to the office – and those who support them – should be told that, if they persist, they cannot be considered for public-service honours, and that any they already hold may be taken away.
Michael Godbee
London W13
sir – I hope that civil servants working from home are being paid extra for the coffee and biscuits they have to buy.
D F Middlebrook
Frampton, Lincolnshire