To think the government have lost touch with reality?

[AdamRyan]

Johnson wants us all back on the office; meanwhile Rees-Mogg is waging war on the civil service, leaving snarky PA notes, telling them to get into the office and cutting 20% of jobs. I can't even imagine how low morale in the civil service must be.

At the same time my industry is finding it very tough to recruit and most applicants expect hybrid/remote working.

I think the government are seriously out of touch with reality here.

IABU - get into the office, workshy stay at home dossiers

IANBU - hybrid/home working is here to stay and they are being dinosaurs

www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-cheese-coffee-wfh-working-home-b2078796.html%3famp

@worriedatthistime agree completely with your post.

How efficient was the passport office etc pre covid?

I don't know about the Passport Office, but I had to renew my Driving Licence in December 2020. I got it back by return of post. I was absolutely stunned.

There is nothing productive about government employing people. It the least kind of productive employment. Public sector has a reputation for a reason.
Also we don’t need 70 people still working on COP26. Yes that event that happened a year ago. And that is a just one example of the bloated inefficient civil service.

They mucked up my driving license renewal but did fix it fast after I complained.

Agree with this.

Why would they want to create headlines? What's the end goal of that?

To make it look as if they're being effective, when in fact they're no such thing

There's nothing at all wrong in principle with WFH, which can be an excellent thing where it works for everyone. Unfortunately, among the Civil Service - already infested with a "can't do" ethos - it can too often offer a way to do even less

I’m not saying don’t pull unnecessary roles or redundant roles. But they are saying there’s 90,000 inefficient bloated roles??

There are apparently 90,000 more civil servants than 2016, but we’ve had Brexit since then. Would be useful to see what departments they are working in.

There is nothing productive about government employing people. It the least kind of productive employment

Doesn't that depend what they're actually doing though? After all in the broadest sense government employ teachers, nurses, firefighters and so on

Trouble is they also employ far too many pen pushers, advisers, "partnership facilitators", managers and much else, who suck up money before it gets anywhere near the front line and tend not to bear the brunt when hard decisions have to be made

I’ve only worked in the private sector

In this instance is it harder to remove people if they are not needed?

In private it’s fairly easy, how about the public sector?

Also helps reduce risk of climate change if there’s less commuting.

Hybrid working should be available to all.

I’m cynical too. If people stay at home to work, people with interests in commercial property and sandwich bar chains will lose out financially. And the tax take from petrol and diesel will go down. But it’s better for work life balance and the environment. But tories DGAF about the welfare of the population or tackling the climate crisis and biodiversity emergency.

I'm not sure about the others, but HMRC staff voted and accepted a pay deal in 2020 which included the right to WFH at a minimum of two days a week. That is now in their working contracts. I understand people like to hate on the CS and HMRC in particular but are we suggesting we remove people's rights that they have in their signed employment contracts? Can't see that happening.

Yes - and then the answers probably Nationalisation so making money stops being the driver

Many departments in the CS including HMRC are contractually permitted to WFH. What on earth are you on about if you don't want to go back to the office find a WFH job? They have hybrid working jobs! It's literally in their contracts. So many ignorant comments wanting to jump on the back of a headline

Im new to CS and hybrid working, when I was looking for a new role hybrid was essential to me, DH (not CS) was hybrid before COVID and I saw the benefits!
It peeves me right off with JRM comments, my colleagues - and a lot of other departments- have all been back in the office since restrictions were lifted but you dont hear about that.
An awful lot of companies offer hybrid now anyway and I think its here to stay.
Yes Boris and his cronies are all out of touch, but thats nothing new anyway

Maybe it's not economically productive to tend to sick people, educate kids, fight crime etc but it does need doing. If I didn't do my "unproductive" local government job the kids would be doing their GCSEs in the park (assuming my colleagues were still maintaining them).

I honestly don't know why people are so against WFH/hybrid working? In particular hybrid working, it allows for some flexibility. It's not an option for me as I work in a supermarket, but to me it seems like a great option, people's working styles are different, some hate it, so have the option to go into the office, others love it so it should be an option.

I mean clearly that is nonsense. How do front line police officers do hybrid working?

Hybrid is fine for some, possibly even the majority, of job, but to state it should be available to all is not realistic

You could cut 90% of the public sector overnight and 90% of the population wouldn't even notice. It's a vast inefficient monolith.

Passport delays are nothing to do with people working from home and everything to do with backlogs due to people delaying sending their applications, staff shortages (approx 1200 short), and issues with Teleperformance (the private company who run the telephone lines). There are also delays with the printing company (based in Poland) so once processed they cannot always be printed and a shortage of some materials (most recently a paper shortage).

Ain’t that the truth.

The DVLA isn’t a working from home one either. That’s a combination of covid restrictions causing issues with numbers physically able to be in, plus they went on strike.
so that’s caused huge backlogs.

You could cut 90% of the public sector overnight and 90% of the population wouldn't even notice. It's a vast inefficient monolith

🤣🤣😂😂 Do you realise how many different departments are classed as the public sector ...... of course people would notice if you just cut 90% overnight