Jolly nice work if you can get it

As Boris urges Britain and to get back to the office we find no fewer than 59 Civil Service jobs advertised with salaries of up to £48,000. All of them promise that the successful applicant will be able to work from the comfort of their own home

THE Civil Service is still advertising ‘work from home’ jobs in flagrant disregard of the latest Covid rule update.

A total of 59 jobs across government departments have recently been listed with ‘home working’ as a possibility, despite Ministers insisting that workers should return to the office.

Among the roles advertised is a senior policy adviser in the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), with a salary of around £38,000 – almost 20 per cent higher than the average wage in Britain. The successful candidate will be working beneath Permanent Secretary Sarah Healey, who was last year blasted for boasting about riding her Peloton exercise bike instead of being at her desk.

Meanwhile, a listing for an operational research analyst at the Home Office, which describes the role’s responsibilities as being ‘at the heart of the Government’s agenda’, says the job can be carried out in ‘an environment with flexible working options’.

The Ministry of Defence is offering a £40,000 job, which promises ‘alternative working practices such as working from home’.

And the crisis-hit DVLA, which has been lambasted for its slow delivery of HGV licences during the pandemic, is advertising for seven new ‘work from home’ positions, with one offering a salary of around £48,000.

The adverts read: ‘DVLA supports flexible working… We are working towards introducing a hybrid model, under which working arrangements will be driven by the requirements of your role in agreement with your line manager.’

The agency has been the subject of strike action from staff resisting calls to go back to the office for fear there were not enough Covid safety measures.

Other roles that allow for home working include jobs with the Animal Plant and Health Agency, the Information Commissioner’s Office and HMRC.

Last year, the HMRC’s chief executive, Jim Harra, told a tax magazine that he was focused on making ‘the introduction of mixed home/ office working a success’.

Our research follows an investigation by our sister paper the Daily Mail yesterday which found that at some Government departments as few as 3 per cent of staff were at their desks.

At the Education Department headquarters just 63 out of the total 2,000 staff were recorded showing up, and at the Business Department just 142 of a possible 1,800 were counted.

A number of Ministries are set to push for a hybrid way of working. Staff at one department were sent an email on Thursday asking them to discuss their ‘ability and willingness to return to the office’ with their line manager and complete ‘an individual risk assessment form’. The department stated it had a goal of a 40 per cent office attendance rate but this was ‘only being encouraged and is not being mandated’.

Staff will be asked to come into the office at least one day a week ‘if possible’, but must book a desk online in advance.

Defiant union bosses last night claimed it did not make sense to require all Whitehall staff to return to offices after they had shown they could work perfectly well from their kitchens and bedrooms.

The FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, said the world of work had changed for good.

Its general secretary, Dave Penman, accused Ministers of engaging in a ‘cultural’ war with the Civil Service, saying: ‘It’s not a health and safety thing – it just doesn’t make any sense. Ministers have made it this kind of cultural war.’

Analysis by The Mail on Sunday shows that a number of Government departments are still pushing for a hybrid model of working, despite the rules around working from home being dropped.

One job at the DCMS is officially based in London or Manchester, but the advert reads: ‘It is anticipated that the successful candidate will have the flexibility to work remotely, with the anticipation that they attend a hub location two times per week’.

A business management lead at HMRC will only need to go to the office ‘where there is a business need’, an advert states. Meanwhile, the Home Office’s recruitment hub boasts that a benefit of working for the department is ‘an environment with flexible working options’.

A Government spokesman said: ‘This is taken out of context. The

Staff asked to come in just once a week ‘if possible’

vast majority of jobs are office based. Even before the pandemic, it was common for public and private sector organisations to offer flexible working arrangements for some jobs.’

The Government hopes that getting civil servants to return to the office will set an example to private companies – and so reinvigorate town centre businesses.

But the PCS union, which represents public sector workers, has pushed back against the plans, claiming they are ‘reckless’.