Fifty-four per cent of offices at its headquarters were occupied during the week beginning October 17, second lowest only to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). The Home Office was among the five lowest rated for attendance at its main building in the five consecutive weeks covering September 19 to October 21, according to figures published on the Cabinet Office website. Across Whitehall, a third of civil servants are still working from home, with an average of 64 per cent of staff in their offices from two weeks ago in the week starting 24 October. The figures will raise questions about whether the department’s leadership has done enough to encourage employees to return to the office after the pandemic.
The MoD has the highest occupancy
The Department of Defense fared better for headquarters occupancy, averaging 92 percent attendance in the four weeks beginning Oct. 3. They were followed by the Department for International Trade and the Cabinet Office, which averaged 77 per cent over the four-week period across their 70 offices in Whitehall and the Old Admiralty Building. Occupancy at FCDO was lower over this time period, averaging 42 percent. In the Treasury, the figure was 68 per cent, with 71 per cent office occupancy at the headquarters of the Department of Health and Social Care. Analysis by The Telegraph appeared to show that the push for civil servants to return to government buildings had some success, with an average occupancy of 65% between October 3 and 28 – compared to 54% between June 6 and July 1. Statistics were collected from departmental buildings to gain a broad understanding of each department’s location without requiring resource-intensive data collection.
Advertisements extol the benefits of hybrid work
It comes as adverts published on the gov.uk Public Service Jobs website in recent days appeared to extol the benefits of hybrid working and working from home. An advert for a £50,000+ managerial position at HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said: “We know flexibility and work-life balance is important, so we offer our people time flexibility, along with the choice of working from home at least two days a week.” A separate advert for a job at the Intellectual Property Office, worth around £67,000, said the successful candidate would be expected to “attend the office at least two days a week”. “We would encourage candidates to discuss working arrangements with the recruiter to agree a reasonable balance between home and office work,” the description added. There has been a push by the government for many months to get as many Whitehall staff as possible back into their workplaces. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former government efficiency minister, wrote to all foreign ministers in April, urging them to send a “clear message” to their officials. Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, has opposed the scale of working from home seen during Covid being made permanent, with his spokesman insisting there was no plan to make working from home the “default”. Last year, Rishi Sunak – then chancellor – said remote working was not a “substitute” for in-person work, telling LinkedIn News: “I doubt I would have had these strong relationships if I had done my internship or first track My career in Teams and Zoom”. Mr Sunak added that it was “valuable” for “especially young people” to work from the office rather than from home or on a hybrid basis. A government spokesman said: “We are clear about the benefits of personal working and departments across government remain committed to having staff working in offices at pre-pandemic levels.”
