Working From Home: Public Sector Productivity

Debate between Baroness Ludford and Lord Livermore

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

At no point in any of my answers did I say it raises productivity—just so I am very clear. I will read from the IMF’s report, for the noble Lord’s benefit:

“Classic firm and individual micro studies typically find that hybrid working … has a roughly flat impact on productivity. Working from home benefits workers by saving them from exhausting commutes and typically provides a quieter working environment. But by reducing time at the office, it can also reduce employees’ ability to learn, to innovate, and to communicate. These positive and negative effects roughly offset each other, generating no net productivity impact”.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, are the Government taking into account the effect on customers, and indeed taxpayers? My experience of ringing HMRC was that I was told that the official was working from home and was unable to access the computer necessary to order a tax statement for me. I thought that was odd. I would have thought the infrastructure needed to be in place.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I obviously cannot comment on the particular phone call that the noble Baroness had, but I will say that the same IMF study says:

“Some studies … found large positive impacts, typically in more self-directed activities, such as call centre or data entry work”.