Boris Johnson has called for people to return to the office, saying that working from home does not work and that when he tried to do so he became distracted by making coffee and eating cheese.
When working with colleagues, the prime minister said staff were more productive, more energetic, more full of ideas.
He said that my experience of working from home is that you spend an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee and then walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop and forgetting what it was that you were doing. He said that we need to get back into the habit of getting into the office. There will be lots of people that disagree with me, but I believe that people are more productive, more energetic, more full of ideas when they are surrounded by other people. In the latest figures released by Transport for London, the usage of the London underground was still less than 70% of levels seen in January 2020, before the Covid-19 epidemic, which forced many to work from home.
After the peak of a Covid wave caused by the Omicron variant, businesses in city and town centres were hit hard by the collapse in footfall, which has not returned to pre-pandemic levels despite the government telling workers they should return to offices more than three months ago.
Returning to the office will get our city centres moving in the weekdays and it will be good for mass transit. Johnson told the Daily Mail that a lot of businesses that have been having a tough time will benefit from that. He is considering a campaign to get over 50 s to return to the workplace.
The government has criticised the civil service for staff who work from home. Jacob Rees-Mogg, minister for government efficiency, told the Telegraph he suspected staff were only working three days a week.
He said he was out when I visited government departments, leaving notes on empty desks. I look forward to seeing you in the office very soon. With every good wish, Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MPJacob Rees-Mogg MP. Rees-Mogg said staff were working from home on Mondays and Fridays because they think that the working week is shorter than it really is. He said he thought staff were working from home on Monday and Fridays when sporting events took place or the weather was nicer.
Johnson has also criticised the civil service for what he claimed was a post-Covid ma ana culture Ministers blamed large-scale home working for the backlogs at the Passport Agency and the DVLA, and the Telegraph reported this month that only 30% of staff in one government department were at their desks on any given day.
It was reported this week that the prime minister had ordered 91,000 jobs to be cut in a cost-saving exercise, with unions warning they could vote for strike action over the plans.
PCS union representatives will meet government officials early next week.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the union, said that our members are in a state of shock. The first they heard of the cuts was when it was announced in the media that all you need to know about what the government thinks of civil servants.
We will have a national conference in 10 days and we will look at taking coordinated strike action. If our members weren't angry before, they are right now. He said that we will fight for every job in the civil service. It is not just on behalf of our members, but also on behalf of every member of the public who relies on the services they provide.