John Glen is speaking at the Institute for (Big) Government’s annual conference today to announce plans for a ““lean, keen and productive” civil service that include increased use of AI and new line management to “help tackle rare instances of unchecked poor performance or serious issues with agreed office attendance“. The government is pointing to surveys that show “learning from others” and staff interaction works better in the office compared to at home. The phrase “No sh*t, Sherlock” comes to mind…

Only 54% of tax overlords at HMRC were in the office this month according to the latest data, all while 64 civil servants in that department alone spend time running woke “diversity networks” of every stripe. HMRC even admits it does “not ask that colleagues centrally report time spent engaging with Staff Diversity Networks” so it cannot keep track of them. The government’s answer is to force them to meet outside of working hours or on lunch breaks…

Jeremy Hunt vowed to cut civil service numbers at Tory conference last year when its ranks actually grew by 3.2%. Adding 15,400 more pen pushers to the blob…