Efforts to get civil servants back to the office hampered by lack of chairs
GOVERNMENT efforts to get civil servants back in the office are being hampered because of a lack of chairs, The Sun can reveal.
Departments sent thousands of chairs to civil servants’ homes to help them work remotely during lockdown.
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This has caused a major stumbling block to getting officials to return to the office part-time.
Civil servants returning to the Department for International Trade said there was a bum fight for chairs because there was a shortage when they returned earlier this month.
One said: “Some of us returned to the office as we were told to - but there literally weren't enough chairs for us - because they sent us back home with them back in March!”
Another joked that returning to work was like playing "musical chairs".
Last week Boris Johnson ordered 80 per cent of staff in Whitehall to return for at least two days a week by the end of September after his previous pleas to return fell on deaf ears.
But his efforts have been undermined by the Labour-run Welsh government, which has set a target of 30 per cent of the workforce working from home even after the pandemic has ended.
The Cardiff government said it will drive “changes to Wales’s working culture” to boost people’s work-life balance.
But the PM’s spokesman insisted the UK Government’s position on working from home remains unchanged.
The spokesman said: “The PM has set out the benefits of people being in the workplace and being able to interact in person with their colleagues.
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"Employers and employees should discuss their working relationship and have those conversations about returning to a Covid secure workplace.”
Later this week the Government is expected to launch a fresh advertising blitz to encourage more people to return to their place of work.
The PM has insisted he wants more people back in the workplace despite the strict new Rule of Six rules that have cracked down on social gatherings.
A DIT spokesman said: “It is inaccurate to suggest that a lack of chairs is preventing staff from returning to the office. We have more than enough chairs for all employees.
“DIT staff have already been returning to the office in line with the COVID-safe capacity of our building. All staff returning to the office have access to the services and facilities they need to work effectively.”
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