The announcement by the Cabinet Office this week that departments must immediately seek to ensure workers increase their presence in offices from 40% to 60% should not come as a surprise.

The Tories are feeling confident in their ill treatment of civil servants. Having successfully imposed the worst public sector pay settlement on us, the government is feeling confident. They are also in a dire political situation and are looking for ways to help the Tory Press divert attention away from the Government’s failings. Picking on civil servants yet again is one of their go-to techniques.

We have been asked what our response is and how the union should respond to it.

The current policy is unequal, unnecessary and unworkable.

The first thing to say is that the default position of the union should be that workers should have ultimate flexibility to choose to work from home or the office, including operational staff where this can be enabled by technology. A policy of mandating any arbitrary percentage is unnecessary, unworkable and inequal.

The union should have already demanded an equality impact assessment: The requirement to attend the office clearly heavily and negatively impacts those with disabilities, caring responsibilities, and young parents.

Since the government has sold off swathes of floorspace over the past 2 years, in many workplaces there simply isn’t the capacity to support 60% office attendance. If implemented this policy will create a two-tier workforce of those who can be mandated and those who can’t.

Ultimately, this policy will increase the amount of time and money spent on travel. With the cost of living still incredibly high and most civil servants receiving the lowest pay rise in the public sector, this represents yet another hit on our salaries and standard of living and is likely to impact morale and productivity.

How should the union oppose this?

To be clear, the union leadership should have challenged the end of flexible working far more robustly. However, we are where we are. This is what we would do:

• Insist on the principle of flexible working and employee choice.
• The legal duty of the Cabinet Office is to consider all the equality evidence of each proposal. The union must write to them demanding this evidence when the policy was first mooted. Also requesting any plans for a post-implementation impact assessment.
• It is likely that the Cabinet Office will claim to respect their legal duty. But without a public impact analysis and commitment on the back of this proposal, none of this can be guaranteed.
• As any equality impacts from the Cabinet Office will be conducted based on generalities, the union must also demand that individual Departments impact asses on the basis that in the large operational departments such as DWP and HMRC, there will be impact differentials between operational staff and Corporate Centre/HQ staff.
• To prove the legal case on equality grounds the union needs to ask for a breakdown of each part-time worker in each department, broken down by gender and then by child carers, those who work part-time for health reasons etc.
• The employers’ assessments are likely to be substandard, so the union should carry out its own equality impact assessment based on the above.
• The legal department should be immediately instructed to challenge the policy on this basis with the stats publicised to members. There is a likely potential for taking test cases on behalf of all civil servants and these should be immediately identified and secured.
• The stats to compare workplaces that can accommodate 60% to those that can’t should be requested, by FOI if not forthcoming. In the DWP for example there will be offices which can and those which can’t, and this has been acknowledged by the Cabinet Office and several individual departments. Our bargaining position both nationally and in bargaining units must be that the policy cannot negatively impact workers based on where their office is.
• In the immediate term, advice and guidance should be supplied to department negotiating teams on the unions position bargaining position alongside a risk-based assessment on the impact of non-compliance. Reps and members should be reassured that they will receive legal support and the legal department should be mandated to that effect.
• Guidance and templates should be produced for members being asked to increase their time in office who have caring responsibility or health issues to challenge any management action to increase their time in the office, with training provided to reps on how to fight this in each department.
• The union should use all communication avenues not just to publicise opposition to the latest attack, which is what’s being produced at present, but to make the political case for flexible working. Highlighting the positive impacts on both the individual and public services as well as the hypocrisy of the politicians demanding an arbitrary return.
• We should work to enshrine the rights to flexible working within contracts and staff handbooks. In the DfT, John Moloney made sure that rights to things such as check-off and attendance rights were so when the coalition government came for them, they legally couldn’t change them. In the past the current leadership have accused us of ‘legalism’ for suggesting others should do the same, but it was our members who were protected while others, such as those in the DWP, had their rights torn from them without challenge. We should use all options available to us.

Further considerations…

Enabling members to work from the office if they wish to

We know from departmental teams, membership feedback, and casework, that some members prefer or need to be in the office for well-being reasons. We defend the right of those members to do so with good quality accommodation, appropriate H&S measures in place, and where appropriate, reasonable adjustments. 

But even then, we must insist on the right of those members to decide how long they will be in the office, making time up at home on the same day or later if need be.

Enabling members to work from home according to their judgment

Civil servants should be able to make their own judgements about their circumstances and work needs (which may change over time) and where they work from.

Mandating any arbitrary percentage is unnecessary, unworkable and unequal. It will adversely impact colleagues with particular “protected characteristics” (most obviously those with dependent care responsibilities, very disproportionately women, and health issues). The underlying logic of the Tories and the mandarins is that greater expectation of office-based working will be underpinned by the misconduct procedures if someone “unreasonably” fails to comply with the expectation. 

Consistent with technical, socio-economic direction of travel

This approach would not prevent management from genuinely encouraging – as opposed to pressurising – people to attend the office, but it would be consistent with the technological, organisational, and economic direction of travel and the experience of recent years.

It is obvious that some parts of the civil and public sector and private sector see greater trust in employees’ judgements and preferences, and greater work location flexibility, as a way of recruiting, retaining and motivating their workforce. A civil service wide policy, under the divide and rule pretence of delegation – would deprive management teams of those tools.

Equality impact evidence and assessments and building in protections

PCS must demand to see what equality evidence the Cabinet Office took into account in drawing up its policy and what equality impact assessment it produced: The requirement to attend the office clearly heavily and negatively impacts those with disabilities and health issues, partner and extended family caring responsibilities, and parents.

It should insist on receipt of the same data and assessments from each individual civil service “bargaining unit” that is considering enforcing greater office working. And, without prejudice to our in-principle position, it must seek to strengthen the rights of members and the equality protections.

Flexibility – a vital requirement for carers

A long-term policy of employee choice flexibility will enable carers to work full time or to contract more hours on a part time or other flexible working pattern because commuting time may be converted to contracted working. That is a boon to pay, pensions and long-term security, especially for women and colleagues with health issues. Insisting on the commute is tantamount to insisting on some members working reduced hours.

For certain, without prejudice to our in-principle position of the location of work being a matter of judgement for all members, those who work part time hours need to be able to decide whether, when, and for how long they attend the office on the basis of what makes sense given their circumstances and working pattern. Not commuting lessens the stress of trying to leave work on time to get home for a dependant.

Percentages of contracted hours potentially discriminates

Equally, as the demand is represented as a percentage rather than attendance days, part-time workers will be greatest hit. Any expression of office time in “percentage” terms may mean that the part time worker must end up with an unsustainably long working day, with impacts on health and the ability to maintain dependent care – or a more “normal” working day plus one or more short days that are not justified as a good use of time against the commuting time.

Government selling off or surrendering estate

Since the government has sold off swathes of floorspace for many years, including the past two years, in many workplaces there simply isn’t the capacity to support 60% office attendance. The Cabinet Office freely admits this. But the lack of desks:

• Raises health and safety issues in overcrowding, blocking of passage ways and escape routes, and people working in “break out areas” and staff canteens.
• Creates problems for members who require special facilities as reasonable adjustments.
• Will create a two-tier workforce of those who will be mandated and those who will not and, because mandating will be left to individual managers, the result will be arbitrary, potentially discriminatory, and result in unfair, inconsistent, application of conduct procedures for “failure to attend.”
• In and of itself, before we think about issues such as dispersed teams, the lack of desking and meeting rooms in some areas undermines the claimed benefits of increased office attendance because you do not get to sit with colleagues, who may not even be in on the same day, and you still join meetings by teams.

Further reducing living standards

Enforced greater office attendance will increase the amount of time and money spent on travel. With the cost of living still high, with the value of civil service pay in long term decline, with the last few years of brutal reductions in our purchasing power, not commuting or commuting three or more days a week is one way in which members have sought to get by. This is a further attack on our already reduced living standards.

Vote for Marion & John

The current leadership is unlikely to challenge this policy competently. Just as they haven’t in the past when it was important to challenge the end of flexible working. If you want leaders who have the ideas, the will and the track record to ensure these things are challenged correctly, please vote for Marion Lloyd and John Moloney in the current General and Assistant General Secretary elections.