Push For Civil Servants To Return To Offices 'Virtue Signalling', Union Chief Says
Prompts for civil service bosses to get the vast majority of staff back into the office have been labelled “virtue signalling” by a union chief.
Outgoing Cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, in a letter seen by the PA news agency, has written to the permanent secretaries of government departments calling on them to bring as much as 80% of public sector staff back into the workplace.
Sedwill, in the note dated September 3, said Boris Johnson had asked to be personally involved in the back-to-work drive and wanted to see departmental figures on a “weekly basis” following Cabinet agreement that increasing office numbers would be “hugely beneficial for our workforce”.
Downing Street this week denied the existence of a “back-to-work” campaign but Sedwill’s letter is yet further evidence that ministers fear huge job losses in town and city centre shops and cafes if workers do not return to their pre-lockdown commuter patterns soon.
The PM is keen for the public sector to lead from the front on the return to work and has even reportedly told Tory MPs he wants the Commons “back to normal” by Christmas.
Sedwill said departments which were below their coronavirus staffing constraints “should now move quickly to seek to bring more staff back into the office in a Covid-secure way”.
He wrote: “We are now strongly encouraging an increased workplace attendance through staff rota systems, with our aim by the end of September to enable 80% of staff to attend their usual workplace each week, for example 20% for five days, 30% for three days and 30% for two days, with the balance attending only occasionally for now.”
But Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, a union representing civil servants, said such targets would be difficult to achieve.
He said office use in Whitehall was already “oversubscribed” even before Covid restrictions were introduced.
Workplace guidance includes introducing one-way systems, staggered shift times and limiting the number...
