Civil service - will you strike?

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My department has been informed today that we must now return to the office at least 4 days a week. I only joined CS 6 months ago after applying for a role that was advertised as 60/40 hybrid (2 days in the office per week). The pay is nowhere near what I’d get in private sector but I didn’t join for that, I joined purely for the flexible benefits. We’ve already been told we’ll get a maximum of a 2% pay rise this year after years of freezes, I was willing to go along with that but I draw the line here.
I can’t afford at this moment in time to be doubling the amount I pay for parking and the amount I pay for commuting. In addition, I just don’t want my work/life balance to go back to how it was before, I was run into the ground working full time from an office, raising 2 young kids (one with SEND) and running a home. Yes, I have a partner that does 50% but he works full time too. With hybrid working I could drop off my children and pick them up 2 days a week. That will be gone now. On top of the increased commuting costs, I’ll also have to find money for childcare an extra 2 days a week. I think there’s an element of discrimination against women because, let’s be honest here, we’re the ones who will be leaving in droves because we can’t reconcile the benefits any longer.
I know there are people who don’t have the benefit of hybrid working, but that’s a choice. I chose hybrid and now it’s completely out of my control even though I have followed to the letter what was asked of us.
If you work for CS and the union ask you to strike, will you?

I suppose you all saw this from Jacob Sneeze Fogg then?

Please don't forget that you have a statutory right to request flexible working. Info here: www.gov.uk/flexible-working

I suggest submitting a statutory application. The department would only be able to turn down a request if:

• it will cost too much


• they cannot reorganise the work among other staff


• they cannot recruit more staff


• there will be a negative effect on quality


• there will be a negative effect on the business’ ability to meet customer demand


• there will be a negative effect on performance


• there’s not enough work for you to do when you’ve requested to work


• there are planned changes to the business, for example, your employer plans to reorganise or change the business and thinks the request will not fit with these plans

It sounds like none of those apply if you're at DfE (didn't your SoS say productivity was high during the pandemic?).

Im not sure why you keep saying women are at a disadvantage - going into the office affects men as much as women

Im not sure why you keep saying women are at a disadvantage - going into the office affects men as much as women

I don't understand how they can say 80% of the time when even precovid contracts were only 50% required in office. My office tried to go back to 50% but were told they'd be put through the ringer as its indirect discrimination due to women and disabled being the most affected. Also those that work part time will not be able to even have one day a week at home if they have to be in the office 80% of the time.

Our desk allocation pre Covid was also about 50% so how are they all going to have us in 80% of the time? They were encouraging two days a week even pre Covid due to desk shortages. I was having to do it more and more due to not being guaranteed a desk despite muscular issues. Many of our staff were perching on meeting chairs and causing massive back issues. I will not be returning 4 days a week until these issues could be sorted.

I have never striked in 15 years but I would if they made us return to the office in unsafe conditions just so we can buy overpriced sandwiches (which I wouldn't anyway esp with cost of living rises)

I don't understand how they can say 80% of the time when even precovid contracts were only 50% required in office. My office tried to go back to 50% but were told they'd be put through the ringer as its indirect discrimination due to women and disabled being the most affected. Also those that work part time will not be able to even have one day a week at home if they have to be in the office 80% of the time.

Our desk allocation pre Covid was also about 50% so how are they all going to have us in 80% of the time? They were encouraging two days a week even pre Covid due to desk shortages. I was having to do it more and more due to not being guaranteed a desk despite muscular issues. Many of our staff were perching on meeting chairs and causing massive back issues. I will not be returning 4 days a week until these issues could be sorted.

I have never striked in 15 years but I would if they made us return to the office in unsafe conditions just so we can buy overpriced sandwiches (

I left a few months ago because it was predictable they'd return to their prehistoric ways and force people back without any sort of pay rise to compensate for the now increased cost of commuting just for the sake of it. Now earning double the amount, the pension and sick pay etc is just as good, more importantly treated like an adult and can choose if I go into the office or not. I'd stand by anyone striking, but the best option is to leave imo and find a job that treats you with your respect. The 'gold plated' pension and flexibility is matched now in a lot of companies.

If you strike you lose money. The union could approach it from the opposite angle - everyone goes into work, then the ones without a workspace form an orderly queue to request their managers find them a workspace, then just generally mill about saying ‘oh my, there’s nowhere for me to work, I can’t get anything done’ until it’s time to go home.
Do that a few times until they see sense.

In my last CS dept (sub agency in DWP) we had max 6 desks for every 10 staff.

I'm now MoJ, and a remote worker. I'm nominally a HQ member of staff, which is in London but I've never been there even for interview. My contract puts me at a now closed office in the area of Birmingham. I live a good 3.5hrs from there, and my team are technically based in a location in Wales. I've been to that office three times including my interview.

The note from JRM could go a long way towards a bullying and harassment complaint against him. It's totally against the Civil Service Code (of conduct) and certainly doesn't consider people may be part time, working at another location, on leave, off sick (middle of a pandemic after all!), have a reasonable adjustment for disability etc....

It's all just political nonsense. Jacob Rees Mogg has a lot to answer for.

If you were recruited during the pandemic and told that you would be able to do 3 days a week from home on a permanent basis, OP, I'd have thought that this is a contractual entitlement. The difficulty will be proving what was agreed if it isn't explicitly mentioned in your contract. Do you have anything in writing?

You couldn't fit everyone in Sanctuary pre covid, and that was without everyone working 80% in! Not a chance this can actually work.

@AlexaShutUp i have an email but it’s just from a line manager and doesn’t mention permanence of the arrangement, and I have the job advert that shows it was advertised as hybrid. I doubt either of those would stand up in court though 😔

@Efortyjive where do you work now? Any jobs going?!

Depends how old the kids are. Mine are 9/10. Too young to be left home alone but perfectly able to entertain themselves for the 90mins between us getting in from school and their dad coming home, while I shut myself in my office.

@Barkingmadhouse because, much as I’d love all things to be equal, they’re not. I have just as much sympathy for men being asked to return to the office but the fact of the matter is that many more women work part time or have flexible working arrangements than men and there’s a reason for that - the reason mainly being childcare. It doesn’t actually really apply to me to be honest as my partner does do 50% of the childcare, but if push came to shove I’d be the one having to cut my hours down to cover as I earn less. Unfortunately in the world we live in that’s still a major factor. Hybrid working suits a lot of women (and disabled workers) for that reason, and taking it away is a step backwards in terms of equality.

Plenty of jobs out here, it's a good time to be looking. Most CS jobs have great transferable skills, I work for a tech company but in nothing technical (its a corporate role). I asked them when I was offered the role for sight of their policies ie sick pay, pension etc and had a look through before accepting. Also managed to negotiate a few things. Admittedly more of a gamble in a way as potentially less secure jobs, but then with the cuts they want to make to numbers in the CS who knows.

@SilverHairedCat Even without all of this I totally agree that the way Jacob Rees Mogg has handled it is atrocious and he should be hauled over the coals for it, he’s a disgrace. There’s no excuse for that level of unprofessionalism at any grade, never mind his.
I won’t hold my breath though.

@Crimesean thanks for this, I will definitely look into that before I make any rash decisions.

@igivein i know you’re half joking but this is actually what will happen 🤣 there really isn’t the desk space.

@igivein Or even better, form an orderly queue outside JRM's office until HE finds a space for everyone to work...

The focus is on staff working in Whitehall, claiming London Weighting but wfh all the time. Quite rightly there is an argument that you can't have it both ways.

You can still put in a flexible working request, as stated upthread.

As regards London Weighting, they may well compromise and pro-rata the payment according to how many days per week a CS works in the office. Seems very reasonable, and in line with Taxpayer value for money objective.

Well yes so why aren't they doing that then, rather than just saying yeah everyone get back in for an arbitury number of days even though we don't actually have enough desks and aren't bothering to think about the cost of living rises our crappy colleagues in government have inflicted on the country.

@Lazypuppy Childcare costs weren’t there for me pre-pandemic because I didn’t work, and I didn’t work because we didn’t want to put our children in childcare. One of our children has SEND and it will be really difficult to find a place for him, I deliberately applied for this job so that we could cover the childcare ourselves. There were no indications at the time that it would end, the job was advertised on a hybrid basis, stressing that the department would be working on a hybrid model going forwards

@daisychain01 if that’s the case it’s perfectly understandable, and those people need to take a good look at themselves. But unfortunately the rule is being applied to everyone, regardless of location (I’m in Manchester)