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Britain’s Counter-Extremism Plans “Sitting on a Shelf Gathering Dust”, Says Former Commission Head

by Richard Eldred
18 December 2023 9:00 AM

Dame Sara Khan, the former Home Office extremism tsar, says official proposals to tackle extremism in Britain have been “sitting on a shelf gathering dust” despite evidence that the country is facing “unprecedented” levels of radicalisation. The Telegraph has the story.

Dame Sara Khan said she was “baffled” that the department failed to formally respond to any of the reports she produced as head of the Commission for Countering Extremism.

She warned that the country’s “counter-extremism infrastructure” is “poor, it is weakly coordinated and there are serious gaps”.

The intervention comes after the Metropolitan Police said they agreed with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation’s assessment that there were “red lights blinking everywhere” – in a reference to the warning signs missed before the September 11th attacks – following the October 7th atrocities carried out by Hamas. …

But, addressing MPs last week, Dame Sara, who was Counter-Extremism Commissioner between January 2018 and March 2021, said: “I have not had a response from the Government to any of my reports when I was at the Commission for Countering Extremism, which in all honesty I have to say I find baffling. 

“Even more so given that one of the key recommendations made to the Home Secretary in March this year by Sir John Saunders, who carried out the inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombings, was as a matter of urgency to consider and respond to the Operating with Impunity report [produced by the independent Commission for Countering Extremism].”

She added: “As far as I am aware, my reports are all sitting on a shelf gathering dust in the Home Office. …

“What I stated in my report was that having reviewed the Government’s then 2015 counter-extremism strategy, which was not about laws, having now carried out a legal review looking into the gaps in legislation, we do not unfortunately have a robust, strong counter-extremism infrastructure.

“Instead, it is poor, it is weakly coordinated and there are serious gaps.”

Worth reading in full.

Tags: ExtremismIsrael-Hamas WarRobert JenrickSara KhanTerrorism

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14 Comments
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NeilofWatford
NeilofWatford
4 months ago

They should be in 5 days a week.
Sack them if they refuse.
The Civil Service requires massive downsizing.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  NeilofWatford

What has where they work got to do with downsizing?

-3
-7
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

They’re a blob that needs draining.

8
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

I’m the first one to agree, just don’t know why their working location is relevant to conversations about the size of the civil service, or their willingness to carry out policies they don’t like.

1
-1
GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I guess it’s relevant to the downsizing effort in the sense that any who refuse can be sacked. Perhaps with the added benefit that those who refuse are also likely to be the most ‘entitled’ of the bunch.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  GroundhogDayAgain

If I were put in charge of downsizing, I would be getting rid of the least productive people first, by looking at how much they produce per £ you pay them, rather than where they choose to work.

1
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Jack the dog
Jack the dog
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Tof – I agree with most of your comments, but on this we differ I employ you I decide where you work what time you start what time you finish, your smoke breaks etc.

Imo, wfh means that civil servants, famously inefficient to start with just sig around in their pyjamas logging on once every now and then trying to make money buying and selling on eBay.

They can all take a running jump as far as I’m concerned.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  Jack the dog

Where is your evidence for this?

As an employer I want to maximise what I get from my employees – there are trade offs involved in that. We are stakeholders in the civil service- I want them to be managed intelligently and to employ the best people.

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Jack the dog
Jack the dog
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

The evidence is that the more of them there are the more England sinks into an economic abyss ergo they are badly managed, mostly doing pointless stuff inefficiently.

Oddly the land registry would seem to be a department that does a necessary job, although it could perfectly well be managed at county level and not from expensive premises in London.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  Jack the dog

We’re talking in this thread specifically about working from home vs office.

I agree about the land registry – could be even cheaper with smaller offices (for those that want them) and working from home…

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7941MHKB
7941MHKB
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

You believe they “work” at home?
You believe the amount and quality of “work” they do from home is both monitored and is acceptable?
You believe that staffing in a Government Department is right in terms of competence and just-adequate numbers?
Wow.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  7941MHKB

How on earth would I know? How would you know?

My guess, based on my own experiences and from talking to others, is that in general the public sector puts less pressure on its employees and is more reluctant to discipline them, for many reasons not the least of which is that UK employment laws make all of this a right royal pain the behind. As to whether civil service productivity has fallen due to WFH, who knows? The “answer” is IMO better management, better incentives properly applied. All of you lot who are chirping about the lazy public sector probably didn’t think they were great BEFORE WFH, so just pushing people into expensive offices they don’t want to be in doesn’t seem like a very smart approach to dealing with the myriad problems of managing bloated organisations.

1
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Albert
Albert
4 months ago

Civil Servants?
I don’t think so 🤔 because lazy people springs to mind

1
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Pete Sutton
Pete Sutton
4 months ago

For how many of the strikers is home a flat share with four other 290-somethings?

3
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Pete Sutton
Pete Sutton
4 months ago
Reply to  Pete Sutton

“20-somehings”

4
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  Pete Sutton

Some of them. Why is that relevant?

1
-1
Pete Sutton
Pete Sutton
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I guess WFH is not so appealing when home is a crowded flat.

4
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  Pete Sutton

Possibly not. We provide an expensive office for those of our staff who prefer an office – I had assumed all the youngsters would want to come in, but many don’t. It seems to depend on many factors. I’m not convinced WFH is right for everyone but that’s for them to decide, as long as they do their work. I am glad we are able to offer choices without it affecting us negatively – it means we can retain good staff in a competitive market.

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Tylney
Tylney
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

In what way is the Land Registry Office a ‘competitive market’?

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  Tylney

I don’t remember saying it was.

To be clear, the “competitive market” I refer to above is the market for staff. Nobody works for free so filling any position involves some level of competing with other employers or alternatives so that the candidate chooses you. Better staff cost more money. Offering flexible working arrangements will probably allow you a wider choice of candidates, but of course you must decide whether your firm is able to offer that flexibility – if you are not then you may need to offer other things to attract people of the right quality – such as more money. Tradeoffs, to which the civil service is surely not immune.

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NeilParkin
NeilParkin
4 months ago

While I am a traditionalist in many ways, and like to have people in the office, I do see how working from home has advantages as well as disadvantages. What I don’t appreciate is the ascendency to the new class of ‘laptop knowledge worker’, while others have to come to the office because thats where their work is. It has, through the times of madness created this group who feel distinguished and desirous of privilege, as superior to their office based colleagues. I would stipulate that they should be in the office Friday and Monday to prevent ‘weekend expansion’.

I’m looking forward to seeing how DOGE gets on in the US. I think a lot of the inefficiency of our Civil Service comes from the myriad of regulation that they have to comply with. Downsizing as it stands would just compound the problem. It needs speeding up, it needs simplifying dramatically. It will naturally reduce in size. More ‘Can do’ and less ‘Jobs worth’. Chronic inefficiency, sloth and waste are just baked in to it.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Why would working remotely cause “weekend expansion”?

Why do you “like to have people in the office”?

It’s simply a fact that lots of jobs can be done from anywhere, but yes let’s make everyone spend hours a day travelling just because some people can’t work from anywhere.

0
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NeilParkin
NeilParkin
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

We’ve been round this quite a few times I recall, but lets go round one more time. This is my view.

Friday used to be known as ‘Poets Day’ (piss off early, tomorrow’s Saturday…). If you work from home, and Friday is the most popular day by far, its not to try and squeeze out the last bits of productivity from your week, it is to have a relaxed feck about day before the weekend. Come on, lets be honest with each other.

People in the office aids communication considerably, it also allows a sense of camaraderie, and common purpose which you can’t have if you aren’t there. It allows a degree of separation of work and life which you cant achieve any other way. An office at home isn’t a ‘work environment’ not if you are breaking of to set the washer going, or feed the dog.

From a management perspective it is easier to see the general dynamics of operations. It is easier to see the wellbeing of the individual, are they happy in their work, are they motivated.? Some staff are not work shy. They are very dilligent, and can end up working well into the evening, because no-one can see that they are struggling with their workloads. Managers are there to manage, not just load their staff up with work like pack animals. Being able to be face to face and socialise with colleagues makes ideas easier to propagate and develop as well. It also gives employees access to their managers, to talk, discuss, socialise, request… . Tell me you can get that from a Zoom call.

Travel time is dependent on where the employee chooses to live, and chooses to work. I know people who travel great distances each day, and that is their choice. They could work closer to home, or live closer to work, but that is their choice. I’m not responsible for them having a two hour commute. Their choice… Some of them use it as productive time, in reflection, to plan out their activities for the day, wind-down after a busy day, maybe make some calls, chat with family and friends to unpack their day. It doesn’t have to be dead time. Commuting into London might be a long-winded affair, but elsewhere in the country commutes aren’t anything like as long and tying. If it takes less than 30 minutes to drive to the office, then that excuse is pretty weak, imo.

I’m not denying that people can work successfully from home, some of the time, or for periods of time. I freely accept there is no one answer to this question, and thanks to lockdowns there will always be a demand for work from home, but if there was to be a default setting, then in my view on balance, Work in Office is preferable

Last edited 4 months ago by NeilParkin
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-1
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Thanks for your comprehensive comments.

My experience has been very different – overall productivity is probably a bit better than pre-WFH, and communication is pretty good. We have taken on new people and trained them. Some employees have struggled but I think this is because they were always weak but they relied on others in the office and now they have to do their own work, they are more exposed. Perhaps my firm is an outlier, though other people I know who WFH are very diligent as far as I can tell.

Why does there have to be a “default setting”?

1
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7941MHKB
7941MHKB
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

If I might cut the Gordian knot, I think you might accept that the flaw in this debate is that you appear to imagine that Civil Serpent bosses will manage their minions as effectively as I am sure that you do.
The answer might be the privatise Land Registry into two or more private companies who employ the minions and organise their employees as they see fit.
Not too difficult then for the adequacy and cost of the work carried out by different companies to be compared.
It would need an intelligent specification of what was required and how succes would be measured and properly monitored. That would probably be the stumbling block.

1
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  7941MHKB

If there’s an issue, which there probably is, then it’s with incentives which feeds into management (and of course I think a lot of what the public sector does, it should not do). Focusing on “getting back into the office” seems like a distraction to me.

0
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

P.S. Being honest I take breaks, work permitting, at various times, but equally when there is work to be done or ideas are flowing I am online late in the evening or on weekends, days off. If I didn’t have that flexibility, which I feel I have earned after almost 40 days of porridge, I might have retired already. WFH has also reduced the incidence of people taking sick days at our place (not that we had a big problem with it before).

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nige.oldfart
nige.oldfart
4 months ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

A good post, from my own experiences of working from home you gradually stop the learning you get from being at the coal face, you loose the contact of new ideas or subtle variations in technics that can improve you and your job. You become insular, existing and working with the knowledge and experiences of what you gained before with little opportunity to develop your skills and expertise, by external influences. In todays working environments things change too quickly, you need to be in the forefront, the office, the work place to keep up.

I would suggest that if you can work effectively from home then your job is a perfect candidate or the future use of AI and your replacement.

1
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Ron Smith
Ron Smith
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I suppose Office romances are a thing of the past when flirting is banned.

1
0
Covid-1984
Covid-1984
4 months ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Yeah, working from home allows you to do food shopping. Don’t tell that doesn’t happen.

1
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7941MHKB
7941MHKB
4 months ago
Reply to  Covid-1984

Also saves massively on transport costs and on child care costs.
Young children will also benefit from being with a parent at home rather than shoved in some dreadful creche.
But are our Beloved Civil Serpents capable of managing the amount and quality of work produced by their minions? Or might they just employ more minions to get work done and bloat their little empires?

1
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago

The only civil servant I know is extremely bright, sceptical, self motivated and right wing. He is much more productive working from home and if forced to go the office he will just move to a much better paid job in the private sector. He has no intention of striking.
But yes by all means manage people by how many hours they spend in an office rather than by how much they produce.

2
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Hester
Hester
4 months ago

sack them

5
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  Hester

Why not sack people based on the work they do rather than where they do it?

3
-1
gavinfdavies
gavinfdavies
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I think the issue is the work they’re not doing, while they’re doing the chores, watching TV, watching the kids, walking to dog etc.

1
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  gavinfdavies

Perhaps whoever is meant to be managing them should, er, manage them then?

3
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
4 months ago

Of course once this “battle” is won the Unions will mobilise their work forces to demand ‘work from home’ allowances. So, there will follow demands for heating and lighting supplements, telephones and associated bills and to be paid tax free. Next will be specialist equipment such as chairs and desks soon to be followed by modifications to the home for office space.

I have worked in the Civil Service and know exactly how these things progress.

Of all the many different types of people I have worked with civil servants are by an enormous margin the laziest
and skiving is an industry pastime. The good, honest people get nowhere and inevitably are ground down by the surfeit of mediocrity around them. The whole industry needs closing down just like our parliamentary system and rebuilding from scratch.

8
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Why not give people an allowance if it means you need a smaller, cheaper office? That’s what we have done. The people working from home in our firm are actually subsidising the people who work in the office. But we don’t mind – we appreciate that different individuals have different priorities and we try to accommodate everyone as long as they work hard, which they do.

2
-2
Purpleone
Purpleone
4 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I agree with most of your points on this – bad managers will continue to badly manage, no matter where their teams are

0
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  Purpleone

Thanks!

I was very sceptical to begin with but have been pleasantly surprised.

1
0
AEC
AEC
4 months ago

Perfect. Would someone lock the door behind them?

1
0
Keencook
Keencook
4 months ago

Recently redrew boundaries on new house site. Somehow somewhere registered LR documents got it wrong by many metres. So boundary between 3 sets of houses has now to be revisited & solicitors involved. I can’t establish who & how it happened but as you can’t get any sense out of LR office, it’s a mighty hassle, expensive & long winded & I suspect LR error.
Recently an Ordnance Survey man came by with sat mapping (for new build mapping). He got boundary correct (ancient fence posts) & it agreed with original registered boundary.
When asked if it was possible to send it to LR office to correct new digital line currently registered wrongly he said no, different organisation. Made me quite cross.

3
0
CircusSpot
CircusSpot
4 months ago

At present the Land Registry do not answer customers queries on Fridays. So the logical conclusion is that they will go down to 3 days which is what they are fighting for.
As RUK have forecast the only way we will ever resolve the State mess is to sack them and rehire as a private company.

4
0
JXB
JXB
4 months ago

So fire them. See if we notice the difference.

6
0
EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
4 months ago

Almost torture to have to work at all.

The under the Boris government the genius Goldmans trader showed that money grew on trees. Oh, oops.

0
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
4 months ago
Reply to  EppingBlogger

The one I know does work very hard, from home. Does anyone here have any hard evidence that this has affected productivity?

0
0
Jeffh
Jeffh
4 months ago

AI will soon replace many white collar workers and the first to go will be those who themselves work through laptops from home.My advice would be to be in the office in person and make your physical presence essential to the organisation. https://www.businessinsider.com/fully-remote-wfh-workers-highest-risk-losing-jobs-ai-chatgpt-2023-12?op=1

0
0
DontPanic
DontPanic
4 months ago

The big question should be why do we needs lawyers and the Land Registry to buy a home. Given that many cars now cost more than a house but the title is transferred on a simple piece of paper registered at the DVLA, why do we need such expensive ways of purchase.

1
0
Covid-1984
Covid-1984
4 months ago

All unemployed should be able to work from home 5 days a week. Drain the swamp

0
0
coviture2020
coviture2020
4 months ago

I would have thought that the contract of employment would stipulate where and for how long the employee works. But knowing how lax the civil service is it probably doesn’t, having the civil service always understood employment to mean office based and x hours. If the former then home workers are in breach of contract and liable to the consequences.

1
0
Simon
Simon
4 months ago

I’ve been waiting for a decision from them for more than 18 months. WFH explains why the LR service and productivity is so appalling. How much longer will i have to wait?

0
0
pgstokes
pgstokes
4 months ago

“Motivated and hard working”? My old friend worked at the Land Registry. He told me that they were allowed ten days per year uncertificated sick leave – which they treated as ten extra days holiday.

1
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
4 months ago
Reply to  pgstokes

Uncertified sick leave did indeed used to be treated as extra leave although in the last few years things have tightened up.

0
0
phennomena
phennomena
4 months ago

Last June i submitted an application to Land Registry to add my spouses name to the title of my house. I was quoted an estimated date of November 2025 for completion of this very complex and intricate process. I actually called LR to check if that was a mistake. It wasn’t.

1
0
JXB
JXB
4 months ago

They need some Victorian justice – a long spell in a pestilential prison.

0
0
Pembroke
Pembroke
4 months ago

One downside of working from home that I’m not sure they are aware of is that a study in the USA suggested that those who WFH get less promotions and as a result don’t progress so far up the pay scales.

This is because of the old adage “out of sight, out of mind”, with managers not seeing them so often it’s the ones they see in the office, putting in their hours that get the raises and the promotions.

1
0

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