“Can’t remember a time when Whitehall morale was lower.”
The minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency has taken his back-to-the-office drive a step further by warning workers he will sell off their office space if they don’t use it.
Reports emerged this week of Rees-Mogg leaving notes in empty office space in government buildings in the capital with a message reading: “Sorry you were out when I visited, I look forward to seeing you in the office very soon.”
According to PA news agency, the cabinet minister has been carrying out spot checks of government buildings, which he has oversight of after being appointed minister of government efficiency during Johnson’s reshuffle in February.
Talking to ITV News, Rees-Mogg said:”We have very expensive property in London, it is there to be used. If people aren’t using it – they don’t need grade one London office space – they can be elsewhere.
“And so people either need to be coming in to work or the office space can be reallocated to people who will use it.”
Confirming that it could mean government offices are sold, the MP added: “We don’t need expensive space in London if civil servants aren’t using it.”
Earlier this month, Rees-Mogg urged his cabinet colleagues to issue messages to workers about a “rapid return to the office.”
The efficiency minister’s pursuit to force civil servants back into offices moved up a notch when he implied civil servants still working from home could receive lower pay or have their Whitehall jobs axed altogether.
In an article in the Daily Mail, Rees-Mogg said working from home has “added an extra layer of bureaucracy”, with every interaction having to be “diarised.”
“The government is committed to reducing the number of civil servants but there are 91,000 more than in 2015-16. This necessarily means a smaller but better-used government estate in the heart of Whitehall.
‘Essentially, if people are not back in their office it will be fair to assume that the job does not need to be in London,” he said.
‘Arrogant and offensive’
The comments created a storm, described as “arrogant and offensive.”
The chaos and disorder within workplace settings at Whitehall has also been reported.
Sam Freedman, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and senior advisor to the education charity Ark, says his DMs are filled with “dozens of aggrieved civil servants” writing to tell him that departments are keen to spend more time in the office but due to cost cutting there are “only 0.3 desks per person.”
“Can’t remember when Whitehall morale was lower,” Freedman writes.
A Twitter user noted how there hasn’t been enough desks in Whitehall for everyone to come in every day since 2013, to which Freedman replied:
“When do you think someone is going to tell JRM?”
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward
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