Civil servants will be placed under "Big Brother-style" monitoring in a bid to make them more efficient. The crackdown on home working comes after business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg left passive-aggressive comments on the desks of those who had not been in the office when he made his rounds.
Wi-Fi and log-ins will be monitored to check whether civil servants are attending their base of operations. It has been introduced in a bid to boost efficiency, with office occupancy having dipped to 42%, according to reports.
The Foreign Office's rate is lower, sitting between 30 and 39%, BirminghamLive reports. However, Mark Serwotka, boss of the PCS civil service union, said: “This is a worrying Big Brother-style development that we fear could be used to victimise our members.”
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The Cabinet Office said last night: “We have been consistently clear that we want to see office attendance across the civil service consistently back at pre-pandemic levels.”
It comes after Jacob Rees-Mogg made unflattering comments about officials not being in the office on this day. He said: “I do worry that the desire to take off Monday and Friday is an indication that people think that the working week is shorter than the reality is.
"One can’t help but be suspicious about the desire to work from home on Mondays and Fridays.” In another dig, he attacked a trade union that has defended its members over home working.
He said: “There’s a hard working ethos in the civil service, unfortunately not represented by their trade union, which seems to want them to be in Tuscany to call into work.”
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