Though Chancellor Rishi Sunak has spent the best part of August encouraging people to flock back to the office, it seems that the civil service has other ideas for its staff. As a typical example, DEFRA has started advertising for a new project manager role which boasts job perks such as “flexible working” and “a blended approach of working from home and in an office”. 

The job advert goes on to explain that:

“DEFRA group is exploring future ways of working with flexibility in mind. This means, that subject to business need, successful candidates will be offered the option to combine working at home with working at their contractual DEFRA group workplace with occasional travel.” 

Guido hears that civil servants in many departments are still primarily working from home, coming to the office once or twice a week at most. In the long term everyone in the civil service is going to be in the office two/three days a week with approximately two days working from home. The government needs to decide whether “flexible working” is the future…