Civil Servants: Compulsory Office Attendance

Baroness Twycross Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for securing this really interesting debate on an important issue. Rightly, we have heard a range of views; I will do my best in the time I have to respond to the various points made. I will also make sure that the Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office, who is responsible for the Civil Service, receives a copy of the record of this debate as she works through planned work in this area.

Rapid advancement of technology in the past few years, particularly since the pandemic, has enabled the Civil Service, like many other private, voluntary and public sector employers in the UK and abroad, to strike a balance of remote and office working that benefits both employers and employees.

In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, about a move by some organisations to full-time office working, it is clearly up to each individual organisation. Like all employees in the UK, civil servants have the statutory right to request flexible working, including working from home or contractual home working, under legislation which came into force on 6 April last year. They are able to make a statutory request to make permanent changes to their contract from the first day of employment. In this regard, civil servants are no different from employees elsewhere in the wider economy.

The Government believe that a balanced approach to office attendance and remote working across the Civil Service provides best value in the services that it delivers. I welcome my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton’s point about the fact that approaches to work—how and for how long we should work, and under what conditions—have changed over time and will continue to do so.

There was a point—my apologies, but I cannot remember which noble Lord raised it—around an expectation from civil servants during the pandemic to be able to work from home. I remind your Lordships’ House that employees were told explicitly that they should work from home unless they had a business need not to do so during the pandemic. At that time, I had a letter in case I was challenged as I went into work—I was expected to work in the office—that gave me permission, should the police challenge me as to why I was out of my home. So this was not a stealth move, nor was it necessarily a demand from workers, but a shift in how people imagined the workplace. That has shifted back slightly towards the office environment, but it can be seen as a shift that happened because people realised that they could have that hybrid working.

As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, made clear, there is no doubt that the pandemic has created such a shift. The technology that we have now, which not all of us had immediately before the pandemic, has enabled effective flexible working, including hybrid working. This is why, in October 2024, heads of department made it clear that the 60% office attendance expectation for all office-based civil servants, introduced under the previous Administration, was to continue. To address the question from the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, directly, there are no plans to change or lower that 60% office attendance expectation, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, that business need is paramount. This is our expectation as a Government.

In our view, the 60% office attendance expectation for office-based civil servants reflects the benefits of regular office-space working and the instances where remote working is either required or useful. Today, for example, I was briefed by a civil servant who is based in the Manchester DCMS office, who 10 years ago might have been expected to come down on the train or be London-based to brief the Minister. There are distinct advantages to hybrid remote working as well. What we have now reflects office attendance requirements broadly similar to those of other employers in the UK, including in the private sector.

I agreed with many points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Farmer—although not all of them—particularly around the benefits to younger or newer members of staff. Going back to my experience during the pandemic, at the Greater London Authority we found that a significant number of younger staff who lived in rented accommodation were literally working and socialising online from their bedroom. There was a mental health aspect to that. Now they are no longer in lockdown that situation is limited, and those younger members of staff may find it beneficial to have hybrid working as well.

However, it is clear that physically working together is proven to have many benefits, such as collaborative working, which increases productivity, with complex tasks and problem-solving undertaken more efficiently when ideas and views are exchanged more spontaneously. I really recognised the noble Lord’s point about not having to schedule a Teams meeting to have a conversation if you are able to have a five-minute chat.

I know from experience that being together creates better opportunities for coaching, hands-on learning and more project collaboration. It can help with well-being and the development of effective relationships across teams. As the noble Lords, Lord Farmer and Lord Maude of Horsham, said, junior colleagues in particular benefit from having face-to-face time with managers, mentors and senior leaders. Those early in their careers can find that working face to face with their peers and managers enhances their learning and makes them more effective more quickly.

As the noble Lord, Lord Maude, also said, managing that hybrid working requires a different and rigorous type of management, but that is not impossible. It all plays an important role in effective and efficient service delivery to the public. However, it does not need to be a binary choice—a point that my noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie made clear very well.

At the same time, we need to recognise the benefits to employers and employees of working remotely and from home, particularly for specific tasks that require quiet concentration and confidential conversations. The ability to offer hybrid working is also a key attraction, retention and talent management tool. It helps to enable recruitment in a competitive job market, particularly in specialist or highly skilled roles, such as digital experts, where the Civil Service cannot always compete with the remuneration—I have never been able to say that word, even when I was running a committee called the remuneration committee—available in the private sector.

We want the best of the best to work with us in the Civil Service. This is how we will deliver the change that this Government feel the country needs. We hope that hybrid working helps to make the Civil Service an employer of choice, including for those with valuable skills who may otherwise be economically inactive or find accessing the workforce difficult. This includes parents, carers and people with disabilities—a point made by my noble friend Lord Watson.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, asked for statistics on the number of home workers and how this is tracked. Like the previous Administration, we publish regular data on office occupancy, et cetera, but not the number of flexible working arrangements, which are held at a local level. This information is not held centrally as it is for each department to manage the contract arrangements of its own staff. However, I understand that it is a relatively small number overall for specific home workers. The numbers are published in the same way as they were under the previous Administration.

The authorisation of various types of contracts or arrangements varies from department to department, but it would normally be done by the line manager of the individual in question, in line with the department’s overarching HR policy and any relevant legislation. It is tempting to think that Ministers should wade into this but actually, for a task-based approach, where the task is at the heart of whether it is appropriate for somebody to work from home or of the level at which they should come into the office, I feel this should be for the line manager. We potentially deskill line managers if we take that aspect away from them.

It is worth thinking about the interesting report from Nationwide’s chief executive, Debbie Crosbie, when we look at who can progress in the workforce. She recently said that it is important for career growth to have a “physical presence” in the workplace. We need to recognise that, although flexible working can be useful for those with caring responsibilities, it is important for businesses to make sure that they support those who take up flexible working opportunities so that they do not lose out on career progression opportunities. It is important for workers to see leaders in action in this regard.

As noble Lords may know, the Cabinet Office publishes data on the average occupancy of Civil Service headquarter buildings, and I am pleased to report that the latest data demonstrates that rates are regularly in excess of the 60% expectation and were higher compared with the same period in 2023 for the vast majority of government departments. Departments have tools in place to deal with where office attendance falls below the required level.

I got a bit enthusiastic about the subject, so I think I will run out of time, but I will try to get through as much as possible before my 12 minutes are up. It is clearly not the case that all civil servants have hybrid working. Many civil servants, such as prison officers, immigration officers and those working in our courts and tribunals, have to be in their workplaces or on official business every working day. This has not changed. My private office is in the office whenever I am, so there is clearly a business need for some people to be in.

However, I find it regrettable that some of the push towards greater office attendance is around the issue of trust. A number of noble Lords spoke about trust, which is clearly vital, but I do not think that mistrust is a good starting point for this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, noted an instance of a certain Minister leaving notes for civil servants who were away from their desks or working from home. I do not think that contributed to a constructive relationship between the Government and the Civil Service.

I am going to finish by saying a little on the wider issue of public sector reform, which was raised by the noble Lords, Lord Frost and Lord Maude. Where I agree with noble Lords is on the importance of public sector reform. I had a number of points relating to the speech from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on reform of the state, which he made shortly before Christmas. I refer noble Lords to that.

I have now run out of time, and I apologise for cutting my intervention short—it is through enthusiasm and not from lack of planning on my own part. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, for introducing and initiating such an important debate. The Government have set out a clear position, and we do not intend to change it.