Two-thirds of staff at Foreign Office ‘STILL working from home’
Despite worst international crisis since 1945...
WHITEHALL’S work-from-home culture is laid bare today with the revelation that much of the Foreign Office has lain empty during the worst international crisis since the Second World War.
Government figures seen by The Mail on Sunday show that earlier this month, staff were using only about a third of the desk spaces at its offices in Central London.
The Home Office – under fire for its slow handling of the Homes for Ukraine refugee scheme – was little better, with just 42 per cent of desks in its London HQ in use during the week beginning April 4.
The Department for Education (DfE) near Westminster was even worse, with an average of just one in four desk spaces occupied.
Separately, this paper can reveal that executives at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) are still working from home for up to three days a week.
The revelations come after the Daily Mail revealed yesterday how tens of thousands of civil servants across the UK were being allowed to carry on working from home indefinitely as part of permanent ‘hybrid working’.
An audit by the paper showed that on a typical Monday in the middle of March, many publicly funded bodies had less than ten per cent of staff working in the office.
The figures sparked fury from Tory MPs – and demands to stop some Whitehall departments looking ‘like the Mary Celeste’ as ‘a matter of vital national interest’.
Writing in the MoS, Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, says: ‘A modern state can’t work without an effective government.
‘For Britain, which after Brexit has to compete with the very best in the world to the very highest standards, this is even more critical. It’s time to get serious. It’s time to get people back to work.’ In January,
Boris Johnson urged Government staff to ‘show a lead’ after workfrom-home guidance was dropped.
Steve Barclay, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, has also urged mandarins to return to their offices ‘as we build a strong recovery after the disruption of the pandemic’. But Whitehall desk-use figures for the first full week in April, based on daily averages, reveal that several Government departments seem to be struggling to get staff back in.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had about a third of desk spaces in use. The Department for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy was little better at 35 per cent, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was on 43 per cent and the Department for Transport hit 48 per cent.
But nearly three-quarters of desk space was in use at the Department for International Trade and Department of Health and Social Care.
The Home Office denied working from home had affected performance. A spokesman said: ‘All staff working to process Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine visas are working from the office.’
DfE sources said because it had asked teachers to be at work, there was an ‘extra onus’ to do the same.
The Cabinet Office said early April was the start of the Easter holiday.
A spokesman said: ‘Departments should make maximum use of office space. Progress is being monitored.’ The DVLA said execu
tives were among staff able to do ‘hybrid working in line with policy requiring a minimum of 40 per cent of their time on site’.
But operational staff, including those processing paper applications, had to be at work.