Nearly one in ten of HMRC’s most senior staff have stopped turning up on Fridays. Figures released to Guido’s FOI Unit show 9.1% of Grade 6 officials and 9.0% of Senior Civil Servants at the UK’s tax office were working compressed hours over a four-day week as of 31 July this year.
This perk has ballooned under Labour. In June 2024, 1,542 full-time staff were on a compressed four-day week. By July this year the figure was 2,267, a whopping rise of 47% in just two years. Grade 6 headcount on the arrangement jumped 64% and Grade 7 rose 55%. The Senior Civil Service figure rose by 37.5%…
The rise is almost entirely a management phenomenon because Assistant Officer and Administrative Assistant headcount on a four-day week has stayed the same at about 1%. The juniors man the farmyard on their own…
A Cabinet Office source told Guido: “It’s often the case that staff working on compressed hours do less work overall because of the way their weekday structure changes.” HMRC insists otherwise, claiming staff on the arrangement “receive no reduction in expected workload, performance standards or accountability”. It has no evidence for this though…
Asked for any internal review of the effect on productivity, output or service delivery, the department confirmed it “does not hold a central assessment, review or monitoring report”. HMRC also cannot say how many requests it turns down because there is no central record for applications…
The internal guidance states that staff should work 9 hours 15 minutes across four days instead of 7.4 hours across five days – arrangements can run for up to five years before re-application. Temporary versions can be waved through by a line manager with no formal HMRC involvement, and the policy openly concedes these may cover a period where “not all duties of your role are fulfilled”. Slacking off…
Bank holidays are handled informally with staff told their entitlement is not calculated automatically and they must “keep a manual record”. Compressed hours also stack on top of HMRC’s two days a week of home working, meaning a Grade 6 can be physically in the office two days a week. With a three-day weekend…
The wider policy document, which Guido has also seen, says HMRC “believe that flexible working can promote work-life balance and improve wellbeing and performance”. Taxpayers still waiting on post HMRC received in March 2025 may take a different view…
Today’s ad hoc report from the Environment and Rural Affairs Committee urging ministers to reject a £10 billion Thames Water rescue deal landed just in time for the LibDem conference, which kicks off in Brighton tomorrow. Is the timing a coincidence?
The report calls on the Government to reject a privately funded Thames Water rescue and explore “all potential alternative options“, landing the mess with the taxpayer.
The Committee last grilled Thames Water bosses more than a year ago, in July 2025, and talks over the company’s future grind on. But the report has been rushed out in double quick time…
The Committee is chaired by veteran LibDem MP Alistair Carmichael, and the party’s Rural Affairs spokesperson Sarah Dyke is a member. The report lands days before LibDem members will debate a conference motion on “Britain’s Water Company Crisis”. Among the campaign groups cited in the report are Surfers Against Sewage. These wetsuited, tousle-haired centrist dads are hosting a conference fringe on sewage with LibDem MP David Chadwick. They’re also organising a swim ahead of a beach clean with stunt obsessed Ed Davey. Water is a big wedge issue in the leafy London and South East seats the LibDems are targeting…
Kemi Badenoch has set the lawyers on the government over the 40% funding cuts that Tory-run Wandsworth Council claims has forced it into a gigantic 94% council tax rise. Band D bills are set to soar from £1,020 to £1,978…
She told Newsnight last night:
“We have actually instructed lawyers, as the Conservative Party, to see if we can challenge the government on this decision.
Because what it looks like Labour is doing is taking money from areas that don’t vote Labour, and giving it to places that do vote Labour.
And I think that’s completely wrong. I think it is outrageous. So we’re talking to lawyers. Andy Burnham has not found 40 percent of anything to cut, but he’s asking Wandsworth to do that. I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think that’s right.”
The Tories are blaming Rayner’s funding shake-up, which redirects money north to Labour areas. Although the Tories’ own summer spending review at the town hall also points the finger at the Labour administration they turfed out in May for running down reserves and growing the payroll by 14% since 2022. Which is par for the course when the Labour sheriffs are in town…
Sky News has got a leak of Starmer’s May-Autumn policy agenda, drafted by the No10 Policy Unit. The “Save Big Dog” plan…
Most of the policies drafted are exactly the same as those now pursued by Burnham and ones for which the new PM is taking credit. Starmer 2.?
They are summarised in a long list below:
Continue reading “Continuity Burnham Borrows From Starmer’s ‘Save Big Dog’ Policy Plan”
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Guido hears crunch time is approaching for those special advisers who were retained from Starmer’s government. The majority of those who stayed in their jobs were given three-month probationary contracts. Burnham came in on 20th July – one month to go…
Sticking SpAds on probationary contracts is not entirely new practice for Labour. Starmer’s No10 did the same as soon as it entered power under famous SpAd-hater Sue Gray, who instituted four-month probation across the board…
Just prior to the change of government the FDA union, which represents some civil servants, signed a “formal recognition agreement for special advisers” who chose to unionise. The union said:
“In the two years since special advisers made the decision to unionise and choose FDA as their collective voice, significant milestones have been achieved. Three consolidated pay uplifts have been agreed, an independent view of pay was initiated and a new pay policy negotiated, and dozens of individual members have been advised and represented.”
Whether or not they can get union help, Starmer’s surviving SpAds will have to prove their worth to the new overlords. Or leave and plot revenge…
Andy Haldane, Burnham’s recent adviser on the economy who has not taken up a No10 job, told Andrew Marr on LBC:
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos…
imposing windfall taxes on oil & gas or on banks or upping capital gains tax would […] repeat the mistake that Rachel made […] The Achilles heel, the fiscal Achilles heel of this government thus far has been its unwillingness and/or inability to cut public spending.”