The uncivil service is upset because JRM left them a sarcastic note, poor little dears.
Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has been criticised for leaving a note for civil servants, saying “sorry you were out when I visited”.
The note, printed on government paper with Mr Rees-Mogg’s title, was left at empty desks and read “I look forward to seeing you in the office very soon.”
Mr Rees-Mogg has said all civil servants must stop working from home.
FDA union boss Dave Penman said the note was crass and insulting, and undermined civil service leadership.
Oh, my, a mild – very mild – rebuke has the salt well and truly flowing here. And what leadership? The uncivil service is the enemy of the people, it actively obstructs government policy it doesn’t like (Brexit anyone?) and this skiving from home malarkey really does need to stop. You see, during this so-called pandemic when the uncivil service was ‘working’ from home, people with proper jobs were out there delivering goods to these peoples’ homes, doing all the stuff that needed to be done to keep the country running, shops, infrastructure and so on, while these useless skivers were sitting around enjoying an extended holiday and now, and now, they have the effrontery to get all salty because they are being asked very politely to go back to the office and do what we are paying them to do. If JRM was to sack the lot of them, it is likely we wouldn’t notice. As for them being insulted – good. They need some insulting good and hard until such time as they get their lazy backsides back to work – that or resign.
FDA General Secretary Dave Penman said civil servants were planning to leave because of a renewed effort to have them working from Whitehall.
“Day after day we have good people telling us they will go because they know this is not about effective working practices,” he said.
Cheerio. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
My sympathy is somewhat limited.
I’m not sure if it is the case here but in a lot of other cases it appears that working from home has proven to be a much more efficient way to get stuff done. Mainly admin jobs involving computers where the location of the workers makes little difference. Private companies find that they don’t need an office building or can operate with a much smaller one. For workers, not commuting is the biggest advantage saving both time and expense. Of course this over reaction could be down to certain people having a guilty conscience.
You hit the nail on the head, Private companies don’t need an office. Private companies need to be efficient or they go out of business, that bunch of R.Soles at Westminster never have to justify a day’s work. I disagree with sacking them, gas the bastards.
Yup. The uncivil service is hardly known for providing value for money. I’m not sure I’d refer to these wasters in the same sentence as the word ‘efficient.’
… working from home has proven to be a much more efficient way to get stuff done.
That’s as maybe. Perhaps for inward-facing roles, but my experience of ‘customer service’, elusive at the best of times, has worsened considerably these past two years. And even if there are some advantages, won’t they be short-lived? Think how difficult it would be to induct new recruits effectively, and it would be impossible to socialise young new entrants to the workforce remotely.
I appreciate that many people are enjoying not having to commute, or dress properly, but hearing some of the advocates for WFH it’s hard not to think that they are happily pulling up the ladder behind them. This might be a rational choice for them personally, but short-sighted for businesses and wider society.
Private companies find that they don’t need an office building or can operate with a much smaller one. For workers, not commuting is the biggest advantage saving both time and expense.
It won’t be long before those same companies realise they can offshore the job that can be done from home to India/Indonesia/anywhere and save even more money on wages…
If it can be done from your living room in UK, it can be done from a living room in Calcutta…
Yup, think about it – if civil servants work from home (and they should be monitored to ensure that is what they are doing) then some of that hugely expensive real estate in London can be freed up, can’t it?
For some reason I thought of a story from back when lifts in tall buildings were operated manually by a guy who drove them up and down all day. Automatic lifts were introduced alongside the manual ones but most people still went with the manual ones because they didn’t trust the automatic ones. At some point the lift operators went on strike. This meant that people learned to trust the automatic ones because it was a choice between that or climbing lots of stairs. The lift operators found themselves out of a job.
If they are working from home, then the London Weighting Allowance should be withdrawn as they … wait for it … are not living or working in London.
Cue the howls of protest in 3, 2, 1, …
…such as the Rwanda deal where they’ve refused to implement it and threatened to strike if told to
Small print of Rwanda deal: UK will accept any “refugee” in Rwanda who doesn’t want be there with priority for those with health problems, especially mental health.
We pay to swap fit young male illegals for sick illegals: no wonder Rwanda likes the deal
“…especially mental health”
Cue 1) mental health services being even more over-stretched than they already are and
2) an increase in the (um) more unusual crimes
O/T
Mark Steyn on GB News reveals the shocking data about vaccines, boosters making Death From Covid more likely than in Unvaccinated. The data many have been highlighting for months and UKHSA has now stopped publishing following PHS’s move earlier
Worth paying attention and watching in full (at least 13 min)
“What do all those over-knighted nitwits have to say about this”
Mark Steyn lays it on the line about the booster shots on the latest episode of his GB News show
https://youtu.be/a8kdH2Xgf-k?t=456
Well done Mr Steyn
Offshoring takes time to become successful and this often requires a change in working practices. It’s not always a matter of an existing job in the UK being replaced with exactly the same job in Mumbai.
My office has a fairly new office in Mumbai. At the moment they aren’t really that impressive. Phds filling in simple spreadsheets without any knowledge of the context. By contrast our office in Portugal has been in place for a few years and are basically doing the work graduates would have done in the UK five or ten years ago, but at a much higher standard (these jobs are much higher status and pay in Portugal than they are in the UK and we can therefore attract good staff). I expect the Mumbai office will evolve in this directly, but it does take time.
The problem with civil service jobs is that they are intrinsically unproductive. At least when people are in the office you can get a sense for who is energetic and puts in the hours. When they are at home, much less so.
Oh, I dunno. The fact that no one noticed any difference and wouldn’t if they vanished tells us exactly how productive they are.
Tell that to the hundreds who are waiting action from the DVLA.
Privatise it.
As @LR says
However, it needs a businessman, not civil servants, to draw-up contract as a competitie market would be difficult on first thoughts
I work from home (rather unwillingly) and spend my days having remote meetings with clients interspersed with paperwork. It is more cost-effective: the company can fit in more meetings at no cost. We have SLAs so there is no opportunity to slack but, then, we’re not the public sector in which I worked for only a short time, fortunately. It’s absolutely soul-destroying when there’s no reason to get something done. One wag one day produced a piece of paper with a drawing of a perforated circle which he named “a round toit”.
You also need an R Sin Gear.