Cabinet ministers plan big push to get civil servants back to Whitehall

Cabinet ministers are planning a big drive to get civil servants back to the office after concerns grow regarding the lack of staff at desks.

Senior cabinet ministers have expressed their concern at the number of those still working from home, with one telling The Times that career prospects should be mentioned in the drive to get people back to the office.

The government has recommended a “gradual return” to the office for workers over the summer months.

However, fears are abound in various Whitehall departments that workers will not return in the autumn as they have become accustomed to working from home.

One Whitehall department, reports The Times, is likely to order its employees to work from the office for at least three days a week from October.

“We are significantly concerned at the lack of people coming into the office. We are monitoring attendance,” a source at the department told the paper.

The move comes amid a big drive by the government to get people back into the office, with Rishi Sunak stressing the importance of a communal workspace to advance ones career prospects.

“But people will find that those who get on in life are those who turn up to work,” another source told The Times.

While staff at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport have returned in encouraging numbers owing to many being young and keen to get back, other departments have struggled.

At the Department for Education it is said that only a quarter of desks are filled on any one day, while the Whitehall Treasury has often mirrored a “ghost town”.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: “Civil servants need to get off their backsides and into the office and they need to do it pretty quickly.”

However, the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents middle and lower-ranking civil servants, warned that any mass return to offices must not happen “until it is demonstrably safe”.