Whitehall lawyers have spent approximately £4 million of taxpayer money on purchasing new laptops, tablet computers and mobile phones to help them work from home. The Telegraph has more.
The Government Legal Department (GLD) has purchased thousands of remote working devices for its staff since 2021, including 560 mobile phones, 2,135 new laptops and 10 tablet computers, according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
The figures, requested by Griffin Law, emerged as ministers continue in their battle to get Whitehall staff back into the office at least 60% of the time – three days a week for full-time staff – over fears that home working has reduced productivity. …
Earlier this month it emerged that civil servants at Britain’s official statistics body had threatened to go on strike after being asked to work in the office for two days a week. …
Donal Blaney, the founder of Griffin Law, argued that civil servants were “milking the Government’s overly generous remote working policies”.
“It beggars belief that officials are splashing millions of pounds of taxpayer cash to fund flexible working for layabout lawyers,” he argued.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
My friend who works for central government civil service in London tells me that for many years there has been a program of divesting themselves of office space, such that the offices left are nowhere near big enough to fit everyone, ergo at least some working from home is baked in. Furthermore it’s pot luck where you sit so you may be nowhere near your immediate colleagues. The divestment should have saved tons of money, so if some of this has been spent on WFH equipment then Joe Taxpayer is probably still in credit. My firm has saved tons of money by getting a smaller office, which is passed on to staff (including an equipment allowance). I’m no fan of the civil service, but this seems like a nothingburger/lazy thinking to me.
If productivity, how ever that’s measured, is lower if staff work from home then this is something that taxpayers should be concerned about.
Well my friend’s productivity has increased because at home he is not distracted by pointless meetings, pointless travelling and people chatting rubbish in his ear. As for the rest of them, I have no idea.
Yawn, predictable petty minded downticks, engage or go away, and grow up.
I once tried to write an office policy on home working. The problems were insuperable. Staff safety, data security, commercial confidentiality, supervision and training.
I think writing a policy about it is much harder than doing it. Our experience with it has been pretty smooth and overall positive. You need to make sure you are measuring what people produce rather than simply their presence, and make sure you use the tools you have to keep in touch with people.
Correct. 8 yrs ago, when I was still a CS, the new office we occupied was designed to only have 80% occupancy. At any one time at least 20% were not expected to be at their desks. I gather from a former colleague who still works there that most of the time the office is virtually empty.
I wonder how they think the information id secure in private homes. Spouses, children, visitors all traping through the house and without doubt the diligent civil servant lawyer will forget to turn off the screen.
Very likely they will not all have country houses or centrsl London flats with a separate room for home working. Many will be working, as a friend of mine recruited to answer questions from the public during Covid, from the bedroom with the laptop there too. The other residents came in with coffee, wine, food, for a chat.
2,135 laptops, 560 mobiles phones, 10 tablet computers. Since 2021. £4m.
So, assume 2,135 + 10 computer users and about one quarter of them get new phones.
£4,000,000 / 2145 = £1,864 / user. Say, 560 phones @ £400 + 2145 computers @ £1,750. Including setup costs. Expensive, but that’s bureaucracy for you.
From the article, they have over 3,000 staff. Typical asset lifetime of a computer in an office environment is 3 years. ‘We’ used to push them to 4 years when I was running this sort of thing, which made me a bit unpopular with the users but not with the finance director.
It’s 2024. Many/most of the 3,000 users’ IT kit will have been depreciated and replaced since 2021.
£4m over 3 years for 3,000 users? Only a bit expensive. The fact that they’re all laptops rather than desktops? FFS many of these people are lawyers, they have to take this kit with them if they go to court or meetings
I like to complain about government inefficiency and waste as much as the next guy here – this isn’t an example.
If Civil Servants have a specific WFH contract, they should not be made to work in an office, however their output must be monitored.
If they don’t have a work from home contract, they should be sacked if they refuse to work in the office.
When I was a boy growing up, the general thought was that many of those employed by the government were parasites and have their jobs because of patronage. The pay was always less than the private sector. Today the general thought is that the best jobs available are government jobs and the pay and benefits are vastly better than the private sector. No wonder there is such pressure to increase the civil service. It has become bloated well beyond useful necessity.