Angela Rayner has said she does not believe low public sector productivity is related to whether civil servants work from home or the office.
The housing, communities and local government secretary said she is “not a Jacob Rees-Mogg” in needing to “see someone in the office to know that they’re working”, adding that she herself “wasn’t office-based for many years”.
In 2022, then-Cabinet Office minister Rees-Mogg ordered civil servants to stop working from home and ensure offices are at "full capacity" following the ending of Covid restrictions in England. He also left notes on the desks of officials saying he was “looking forward” to seeing them back in the office.
Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Rayner was asked about a report in The Times last week which said 71 staff in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government had not visited the department’s offices for more than a year and whether this was “acceptable”. Rayner said: “I think people work extremely hard. I don’t think this is a productivity problem because individuals are in or outside the office."
Rayner was then asked for her view on why public sector productivity still lies below pre-pandemic levels. She said: “I think the challenge that we face actually is that the cost of things have gone up and wages haven’t gone up in the same rate as the cost of living of essential items, which is why the prime minister is being clear that we need to tackle the cost of living crisis and make everyday items that people need are resolved.”
Again pushed on whether she is concerned by officials not coming to the office in her department, Rayner added: “I don’t see people as being physically in the office all the time as an issue around productivity. I’ve actually seen when there’s been studies done that actually people that work from home where they can, productivity can go up.
“If you look at some of the studies where people have done home working, actually within their departments sickness levels have gone down, that productivity has gone up. So I dispute that the productivity issue in our country is because somebody works from an office or somebody works from home. I don’t think that is the case.”