Raft of services warn of delays as union boss claims civil service is functioning ‘well’ from home

A host of government departments are still unable to carry out a number of crucial services, despite a civil service union boss’ claim that Whitehall staff are functioning ‘very effectively’ from home. 

The DVLA is warning that paper applications for driving licences ‘will take longer to process’, while foreign nationals looking for a faster decision on their visa or settlement application are told on the Home Office website that such procedures are ‘currently suspended because of coronavirus’.

Similarly, there are notices that passport offices are closed, face-to-face Parole Board hearings are suspended and interviews at Jobcentre Plus shouldn’t be attended. 

It comes amid Boris Johnson’s call for civil servants to return to the office, having set a target of four in five workers to be back at desks each week by the end of the month.

Mandarins are also being asked to provide weekly figures on staff numbers to monitor progress, as the Prime Minister spearheads a desperate bid to rescue the economy, after GDP has plummeted as a result of the crisis.  

However, Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, which represents managers and professionals in public service, said there has been an ‘industrial revolution’ towards home working, while another trade body said it was considering strike action against the Government’s plans. 

He told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme: ‘Trying to bring hundreds of thousands of people back on some kind of rota basis that you’re enforcing from the top is ineffecient and ineffective when the civil service is actually working very effectively remotely just now.

‘If you look at what’s happened over the last six months, as well as transforming themselves into home-based service, the civil service has had to transform its priorities. 

‘It had to deal with a six-fold increase in Universal Credit, had to develop the furlough scheme to support nine million workers, all while it was 95% home-based. I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest it’s less effective.

‘Do you think you’re going to lecture the private sector about what’s efficient? Are they simply going to say ‘this has been working, but because civil servants are coming back into Whitehall, we’re going to tell our staff they’ve got to come back even though it’s working for us now’?

‘This idea that the government is going to lecture the private sector about what’s good for it, and virtue signal with the civil service is a fool’s errand. 

‘There has been this industrial revolution and ministers have just let that pass them by and instead have these pronouncements on high, dreaming of rotas in cabinet about how civil servants are going to get back to the office.’  

Mr Penman also accused the government of trying to ‘shame’ workers through coverage of how few have been commuting in to return to desks via the media.  

Twitter users appeared to have had a different experience, however, with many complaining of delays and warning that suspending crucial services could result in serious ramifications.

One wrote: ‘I hope you will reconsider putting [the ‘super priority service’ to get a faster decision on a visa] back soon though; the time between the expiration of the Tier 2 Visa and the start of application for ILR (indefinite leave to remain) is quite tight. 

‘Some keyworkers will be unemployed if they wait for your standard processing.’

Another said they’d had to wait up to 13 weeks to hear back from the DVLA over a licence renewal, claiming ‘it’s just taking ages’.

Meanwhile, priorities were questioned by another user from Milton Keynes, who said: ‘Pubs and restaurants are open but the passport office is closed? Make it make sense.’

At the beginning of lockdown there were 423,000 civil servants employed full time by Whitehall departments.

Permanent secretaries were given instructions last night to ‘move quickly’ to ‘bring more staff back into the office’, taking advantage of the return to schools and increased public transport services.

In a letter to all Whitehall ministries and seen by the Mail, Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill and civil service chief Alex Chisholm said the Prime Minister has ‘made clear his aim is to get as many people back to workplaces as possible’ in a safe way.

At a Cabinet meeting earlier this week, they said ministers had agreed that ‘increasing both the number of people in the office and the amount of time those people spend in the office’ would be ‘hugely beneficial’ for the civil service.

‘The Prime Minister is also clear that getting more people back into work in a Covid secure way will improve the public services we deliver, and will also provide a significant boost to the local economies where they are based,’ they added.

The letter warned that the huge numbers of civil servants working from home had led to 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’.

It added: ‘There have also been challenges with bringing on board new or inexperienced colleagues and limitations in the ability to mentor and develop our people.

‘In short, it is the Government’s view that on the whole there are significant benefits to be gained from working collaboratively in an office environment and where possible colleagues should now return to the office in line with Covid-secure levels.’

The civil service heads said the aim is for 80 per cent of staff to ‘attend their usual workplace each week’ by using a rota system that will see some come in for only two or three days. 

The push is a victory for the Mail, which has called for more civil servants to go back to their desks to set an example for the rest of the country. 

In a sign that action is finally being taken, Home Office staff were told yesterday that they would be expected back promptly.

The department’s permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft said it would enable them to carry out a ‘full and effective performance’.

The Mail has continued to monitor staffing levels across Whitehall, with as few as 5 per cent of staff turning up to work at ministries this week.

As millions of pupils returned to classrooms this week, it was likely to be a busy week at the offices of the Department for Education, which accommodated up to 2,000 staff before the pandemic.

Yet only 103 staff arrived at its seven-floor headquarters on Tuesday and 120 on Thursday – accounting for just six per cent of capacity. 

At the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, where 1,800 staff usually work, the number of staff just broke into triple figures. 

In response, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union said today it would be willing to consider strike action after confirming it opposed the plans.

In a statement, the union said: ‘Our members have kept the country running during the pandemic while working from home and we believe it is not safe to return to workplaces while Covid-19 infection rates remain high and given the likelihood of a second wave in the coming weeks.

‘We are asking departments to provide, as a matter of urgency, for each building the Covid-secure limit, current staffing in each building and current risk assessment for each building.’

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka added: ‘If the Government or any employer starts forcing people back to work and we believe that it is not safe to do so we will firstly consider our legal options, secondly give individual legal advice, and thirdly consider whether a collective response is required.

‘As a last resort, if you have no other option and people’s health and safety is at risk, of course we would be prepared to consider industrial action.’

Its national executive committee is due to meet on Wednesday September 9 and will ‘decide how to respond’, the union said.

Lockdown-free Sweden’s coronavirus case rate is now lower than Nordic neighbours Denmark and Norway with just 12 new infections per million people over the past week

Lockdown-free Sweden saw its coronavirus case rate drop below its Nordic neighbours Denmark and Norway today to just 12 new infections per million people over the past week.

In comparison, Norway saw 14 new infections per million people, and Denmark saw 18, meaning Sweden had an average case rate over seven days lower than its neighbours for the first time since March.

‘Sweden has gone from being one of the countries with the most infection in Europe, to one of those with the least infection in Europe,’ the country’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said at a press conference earlier this week.

Meanwhile, ‘many other countries have seen a rather dramatic increase,’ he added. 

At the height of the pandemic, Sweden’s infection rate dwarfed that of its neighbours, who did implement a lockdown.

At its peak on June 19, Sweden was seeing 108 new infections per million people, compared to Denmark and Norway’s eight and three respectively.

The number of deaths in Sweden is now averaging at two to three per day, compared to a peak of over a hundred per-day it suffered in mid-April.

Furthermore, its capital Stockholm, the epicentre of Sweden’s pandemic during the peak months of April and May, registered its lowers number of cases since March last week.

In Stockholm, 250 of 14,000 people tested last week were infected with the virus, a positive rate of 1.8 percent. 

Meanwhile, Denmark registered 179 new cases on Friday, its highest daily total for more than four months. 

To add to positive signs in Sweden, a test last week of 2,500 randomly selected people found not one had coronavirus. 

In comparison, in a similar test, 0.9 per cent were found to have the virus at the end of April and 0.3 per cent at the end of May.

Announcing the results on Thursday, Dr Tegnell’s deputy at the Public Health Agency of Sweden, Karin Tegmark Wisell, said: ‘We interpret this as meaning there is not currently a widespread infection among people who do not have symptoms.’

Lockdown-free Sweden has been controversial for its liberal attitude to controlling the pandemic, preferring instead to let run through the population to create a ‘herd immunity’. 

But the country’s latest figures may silence some of its critics, and will come as a relief to those who advocated for the approach and came under fire in May as the country saw the highest per-capita death rate in the world for a period.