Now civil servants to strike over WFH! Statistics staff plan walkout after being told to come to office TWO days a week

Civil servants will strike after being ordered to return to the office for just two days a week.

Staff at the Office for National Statistics have worked from home since the start of lockdown but want to keep the option of doing so full time.

It is believed to be the first time a walkout has been organised by civil servants over demands to return to the office. Ministers want Whitehall staff back at their desks at least 60 per cent of the time, or three days a week for full-time staff, amid fears that WFH has reduced productivity and increased waiting times for services.

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, who as minister for government efficiency wandered empty offices and left notes on civil servants' desks saying he was sorry to have missed them when they worked from home – said last night that refusing to return to the office was 'shirking, not working'.

He told the Daily Mail: 'This just proves the point that working from home is idling from home.

'They need to go back to work because we need to have proper statistics so that the Government can make informed decisions. Lots of ONS stats have been woefully inadequate, including their estimates of GDP and the number of EU nationals entitled to settled status, which was almost two million higher than they forecast.

'You would have thought that getting its figures wrong would be incentive enough to return to work.

'Going on strike over returning to the office simply proves that working from home is shirking rather than working.'

The ONS disputed Sir Jacob’s statement on the number of EU nationals with settled status. 

Nearly three quarters of Public and Commercial Services Union members (PCS) who voted backed industrial action in a poll. The turnout from members, however, was only 50 per cent – just meeting the legal threshold for a ballot. 

The union said home and hybrid working has been successful since the start of the pandemic, adding that managers had reassured staff that these arrangements would remain in place.

The official statistics body has its headquarters in Newport, south Wales, with offices in London, Titchfield, Darlington, Manchester and Edinburgh. The ONS staff voted in protest at plans requiring them to be in the office for at least 40 per cent of the working week, with a turnout of half of the workforce.

A spokesman for the ONS said that its plans were 'in the best interests of the ONS and all our colleagues'.

But Fran Heathcote, general secretary of the PCS, accused the ONS of 'undermining' staff's goodwill.

She said: 'ONS bosses have seriously undermined the trust and goodwill of their staff by seeking to drive this policy through in such a heavy-handed way, heedless of the consequences.

'They now need to immediately pause implementation of the policy and talk to us about reaching a sensible resolution of this issue, which does not carelessly disadvantage staff.'

The ONS, which collects and analyses data about the UK, is a government organisation but independent of ministers.

The proportion of people working from home increased dramatically when the Covid pandemic hit. But the Government has been pushing to see more civil servants coming into the office since the final Covid restrictions were lifted.

Earlier this year Cabinet Office minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe said there were 'clear benefits from face-to-face, workplace-based collaborative working'. Last year Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the office should be the 'default' location for workers and expressed the concern about a 'loss of creativity' if remote working practices were made permanent.

Current civil service guidance says most civil servants should spend at least 60 per cent of their time in the office.

Last November the ONS announced that, from early 2024, its workers would have to spend a minimum of 20 per cent of working hours in the workplace, rising to 40 per cent from April.

The PCS union said this would mean 'considerable disruption, especially for staff with childcare and other caring arrangements' and accused the ONS of refusing union requests to consider 'a more gradual and flexible transition'.

In the ballot, which ended this week, 73 per cent voted in favour of strike action and 84 per cent supported action short of a strike. Six hundred members took part in the vote – half of those who were balloted.

The ONS said: 'There are robust plans in place across the organisation to mitigate against disruption and maintain essential services should any industrial action take place.'

A spokesman added that the organisation has had a hybrid working model for several years, in line with the wider civil service.

He said : 'Face-to-face interaction supports collaboration and fosters learning and innovation, while some tasks can be done as effectively or even more effectively at home. We are applying this flexibly to help balance business and personal needs and have offered all colleagues extensive support.'