In April, Cabinet Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg issued a letter to fellow ministers urging them to “send a clear message to your department’s civil servants to ensure a speedy return to office”. However, data obtained by Sky News under the Freedom of Information Act show the extent to which Whitehall offices are unable to provide adequate office space for all employees. In 2022, the office of the Department of International Trade at Admiralty Place had 3,151 employees and 708 offices. The Office of Health and Welfare in London had just 848 offices for 2,707 staff – meaning there was room to accommodate only 31% of the staff. Since 2018, the number of employees has almost tripled, but only ten additional offices have been found. The Great Smith Street Department of Education headquarters has 2,243 full-time employees, but only 1,100 desks are available. In 2021, the Home Office building on Marsham Street had 2,012 offices for 4,137 employees attached to the office. The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) on Victoria Street has less than half the number of desks required to accommodate all staff connected to its headquarters. Council of Shadows Minister Rachel Hopkins said the figures were a “mockery” of Jacob Reese-Mogg’s “futile head-counting exercise in the Whitehall corridors.” BEIS said the number of staff on Victoria Street 1 has increased as the department has significant responsibilities for carrying out “key government commitments”, including the Vaccine Working Group. Other departments, including the Northern Ireland Office and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, had similar shortcomings. The Cabinet Office refused to disclose any information in its possession and no response was received from the Ministry of Culture, Media and Sports or the Ministry of Defense. Only the Ministry of Labor and Pensions and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that they have enough office space for all staff – with 2,333 offices available for the 2,158 staff employed in the first and 3,500 offices and 3,200 employees in the second. However, despite the lack of office space available in the rest of Whitehall, the government is pushing hard to reduce the number of non-working civil servants. Sky News understands that Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab goes so far as to check personal data to check how many civil servants come to work in the Department of Justice – which has 2,138 offices for the 4,125 staff at its Westminster office. A civil servant in his department told Sky News that “he really has to have better things to do”. The Ministry of Justice declined to comment, but a source said that “ministerial oversight of office presence is not uncommon and the Ministry of Justice is no exception.” A civil servant told Sky News that while there was a difference between departments in some cases, the lack of desks meant that staff were only allowed to work in the office for three days a week before the pandemic. Another civil servant criticized the government, saying that “trying to force yourself to work in a full-time office, which can often be less effective, is quite foolish, especially when in most cases offices have no space anyway.” They said the public service had developed “really effective hybrid work patterns as a result of the pandemic”. Yesterday the government published an update on the number of civil servants working in the office for each department. It showed that less than a quarter of the staff of the Ministry of Interior and Foreign Affairs worked from the office last week. Ms Hopkins said: “These figures are mocking Jacob Reese-Mogg’s futile head-counting exercise in the Whitehall corridors and the creepy notes he leaves on civil servants who are just trying to get on with their work.” He added: “Ministers should focus on providing real solutions to the cost of living crisis, rather than trying to blame their staff for the incompetence of the government itself.” Responding to the figures, a government spokesman said: “The Prime Minister and the Secretary of the Cabinet were clear that they wanted to see the presence in the civil service offices at stable levels before the pandemic and we have seen significant increases in occupancy that remain narrow. are monitored. “There is full agreement across the government on the clear benefits of face-to-face, collaborative work and we know this is particularly important for the learning and development of new and junior staff.” The government also stressed that the use of hybrid labor regulations was not new and was in force before the pandemic. They said that most departments organize space based on the ratio of offices to staff based on the assumption that not all staff will be in the office every day.
