Civil Servants: Compulsory Office Attendance

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Farmer]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they intend to change requirements for civil servants to work in government offices following a vote for possible strike action over compulsory office attendance at the Land Registry.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, the issue of the amount of time civil servants are required to work in their offices rather than in their own homes has been raised several times in Oral and Written Questions, and there will be a Select Committee on home-based working starting shortly. I understand that this is going to be based here and not in people’s homes. This is a welcome opportunity to have a longer debate in advance of that. It is a very important issue for the country, as we try to pull together after a tumultuous period, especially during the pandemic, when many social norms were turned on their heads. The norm that people had separate work and home spheres was completely inverted. There were, of course, exceptions to this norm, but there were also reasons why it was a norm.

To set this debate in the broader context of requirements on the Civil Service, the last Government mandated civil servants to work together in offices 60% of the time. Phrased as an “expectation”, it had flexibility built in, so that many exceptions could be made—for example, on the grounds of disability or childcare responsibilities. The Cabinet Office said that department leaders would listen to staff and make adaptions where required to ensure that the policy meets business needs. This was part of the Civil Service People Plan, which points out that the

“programme of modernisation is no end in itself. It is about delivering to every part of our country and every family, and doing so better, more effectively and efficiently”.

The current government focus, as stated by the noble Lord, Lord Livermore, is on fundamental reform of our public services to drive greater efficiency and productivity. They renewed their commitment to the 60% office attendance mandate on 24 October 2024, doing so with reference to a wide range of studies showing the benefits of hybrid working.

However, Land Registry employees in the Public and Commercial Services Union will strike indefinitely from 21 January over their managers’ application of this mandate, refusing to cover for colleagues or to take on anything they deem to be beyond their job description. The PCS cited concerns about reduced work flexibility, extended working days due to commuting, financial impact, well-being, and impacts on disabled workers and carers. Limits to flexibility and the time, money and energy spent on commuting are all costs of employment that were normal before the pandemic catalysed the mass movement out of the workplace and into the home.

As an employer, I have first-hand experience of how hard it is to assess performance when people are working from home. Major changes to stamp duty are coming in April this year, which the Land Registry will have to administer, yet commentators in the FT have described the Land Registry’s current inefficiency, with some registrations now taking 12 to 24 months, and its service levels are already far below what any private sector business would deem to be acceptable.

The PCS general secretary, Fran Heathcote, said that imposing mandated targets on office attendance

“doesn’t increase productivity and is unpopular with staff”.

How can she be so certain? I am sure that others here will talk about the benefits of home working. However, assessments of its impact on productivity are inconclusive, and the Government are very clear on the benefits of collaborative face-to-face working, particularly in the Civil Service. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, whose shareholders require him to run an efficient business, announced on Tuesday that all staff will be required to work in the office five days a week, as

“staff work better together in-person”.

Dimon has been critical of the US Federal Government’s lax expectations of their officials in this area.

The taxpayers of this country are the shareholders of the Civil Service, and we require the Government to run it effectively. In 2019, the TUC described home-based working as a “win-win-win” that

“can boost productivity … But too many employers are clinging to tradition, or don’t trust their staff enough to encourage homeworking. They need to catch up”.

The implication is that remote working was previously underused and that we are now in a brave new world of greater efficiency. Frankly, the TUC needs to catch up on the realities of human nature. The companies that I have managed and started have taught me that the sentiments expressed by the TUC are rather naive. It is not necessarily clinging to tradition to want to have the team work together, united in the aim of furthering the business and building relationships through interaction. Moreover, trust must be earned; it comes with a good track record. Accountability must be learned and observed. If you can see no evidence that work is happening, how can you know that it is taking place? Furthering the business is existentially important when its survival is at stake.

Flourishing businesses are indispensable for employees’ economic well-being and require employers to take a risk, often working long hours themselves. My experience is that home working has been a brake on creativity and productivity. The IFS warns that people might, in fact, now be working too much from home and undervaluing the benefits of in-person work. It says that externalities—the bigger picture—need factoring in, but the employee looks only narrowly at the costs and benefits of their actions. Externalities include the effects of a personal decision to home-work on everyone else in the office and their productivity. More people in the office can better facilitate collaboration and creativity, such as with a quick five-minute chat to resolve issues instead of a diarised Teams meeting.

Importantly, the costs and benefits of home working are spread very unevenly across each firm’s workforce. Older and more experienced workers may just want to get their heads down and finish early. Their pre-pandemic work-based social networks have kept going, reducing the benefits of going into the office. Often having bigger homes, they can work in separate spaces from the families that they spend time with after work. However, psychological impacts on younger, newer workers are likely underestimated. Working in their bedrooms, struggling with loneliness and flailing around with little help and social support, they need informal chats and to observe first hand those with greater experience. Much is better caught than taught.

Older and more senior workers who insist on home working for personal convenience are often pulling up the ladder that they were able to climb. Since the Budget, there has been a cloud of gloom over business, given ever-increasing levels of taxation and constantly mounting pressures on employers. These include ever-increasing rights of employees. If many rights are given on day 1, when people have not shown that they can even do the job, this will deter hiring. Entrepreneurialism is being dampened and the spirit of adventure required to start and drive a company and create wealth is evaporating. Many companies are fast reaching the limits of sustainability in such a hostile environment and urgently need their staff to do the work that they are paid to do in the most productive way possible.

We are still in the wash of the pandemic, so in this nationally vital area of employment it is time to evaluate what is good, what is bad, what is right and what is wrong. Frankly, it cannot just be what the unions and employees want. The home working norm, which emerged in very abnormal circumstances that now no longer exist, has been sustained. Why? Will the Government confirm that working from home and even hybrid working will not be treated as a right? The employer should be able to require what is needed for delivery. Will the Government confirm that they do not intend to reduce the Civil Service office attendance mandate? They should, as employers and stewards of our taxes, act on the bigger picture, the externalities mentioned by the IFS, and enable other employers to do the same.