Now civil servants to strike over WFH! Statistics staff plan walkout after ... trends now
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.
Ministers want staff at Whitehall (pictured) back at their desks at least 60 per cent of the time, or three days a week for full-time staff
![Civil servants will strike after being ordered to return to the office for just two days a week [Stock picture]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/04/05/21/83294807-13277345-image-a-31_1712350313085.jpg)
Civil servants will strike after being ordered to return to the office for just two days a week [Stock picture]
‘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.’
Nearly three quarters of ONS staff who voted backed industrial action when polled by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). The turnout, 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
