Government 'virtue signalling' with call to return to offices, says union boss

Government calls for officials to go back to the office are "virtue signalling", the head of the civil servants' union has said.

Dave Penman, head of the FDA, said the reported move was designed to provide an example to private firms that have "already moved on".

It comes after the BBC reported that the outgoing head of the civil service, Sir Mark Sedwill, has written to department permanent secretaries calling on them to increase the number of officials working in offices.

Mr Penman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It is quite clear from the letter that has been sent out, this is really about virtual signalling to the private sector that has already moved on.

“You’re not telling me that the big financial houses in the City of London would be having their staff working remotely if it wasn’t working effectively for them.”

Asked about productivity levels during the lockdown, Mr Penman added: “Clearly, there are many areas of work you would say it is impractical to do that from home – that doesn’t work for everyone.

“But there is no evidence to suggest that people are working inefficiently – people are spending less time commuting, they’re finding it works for them.”

He said the Civil Service had dealt with increased demand in Universal Credit and started the furlough programme from the ground up since the start of the pandemic, all with staff being 95 per cent home-based.

Mr Penman added that the reported Government plan was impractical, in part because there was a shortage of desks even before the need for social distancing.

He said: “Government offices have a capacity of a maximum of around 50% because of the Covid restrictions.

“In a lift, for example, you can have a maximum of two in offices of thousands of people.

“They’re already over subscribed because the Government has reduced the office space, so in many cases there’s actually only 60 per cent of desks for the staff available.

“So trying to bring hundreds of thousands of people back on some kind of rota basis which you’re enforcing from the top is inefficient and ineffective when the civil service is actually working very effectively remotely right now.”

Sir Mark's letter, seen by the BBC, urged department chiefs to start "getting more people back into work in a Covid-secure way [to] improve the public services we deliver".

It went on: "We have seen a reduced level of social interaction among our colleagues, with the loss of some of the spontaneous interaction and cross-fertilisation between teams that drives innovation and sustained common purpose."

The Cabinet Office has been contacted for comment.

Mr Penman's comments come as disease experts warn that large numbers of students soon travelling across the country to study at universities in person could lead to major outbreaks of Covid-19.

Dr Mike Tildesley, associate professor of infection modelling at the University of Warwick, said there are fears universities could act as “amplifiers” for spreading the virus.

He told BBC Breakfast: “What we need to remember is at the moment in the country we’re dealing with a series of really local outbreaks that we’re trying to manage with local control policies.

“But when students come to university, potentially they’re travelling across the country and possibly they may be moving from parts of the country where there’s a lot of infection to parts of the country where there may not be as much infection.

“So there is the possibility that when these students move long distances they could carry infection with them.”

But he added that students are at low risk of developing severe symptoms themselves.

His comments echoes warnings by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) on Friday that university outbreaks risk amplifying the transmission of the virus across the country.

Social interactions and accommodation are likely to be a “high-risk environment” for transmission to occur – and asymptomatic cases among students may make it harder to detect, they warned.

The scientists suggested that wider-scale testing, combined with action places, may help control campus outbreaks.

Wearing face coverings in campus buildings and reducing in-person interactions may mitigate the transmission of Covid-19, the advice suggests.

It says: “Students who are residents in university accommodation should be segmented as far as possible to co-locate courses or year groups, to minimise networks between different parts of an institution.”

Read more

Younger people 'more likely to have virus'- LIVE

France sets daily record of 9,000 new coronavirus cases

Covid-19 outbreak at asylum seekers’ hostel as 56 test positive

100 pupils told to quarantine after virus case at Staffordshire school

Lockdown rules to be eased in Greater Manchester and Lancashire

Outbreak at Tesco warehouse as workers test positive for Covid-19