It’s hardly a secret that our beloved civil servants loathe dragging themselves into the office, preferring instead to “work” from the comfort of their own homes – or, as it turns out, from sunnier climes abroad. The PCS union is up in arms over the government’s entirely reasonable plan to have them clock in for at least 60% of their time, given the undeniable fact that they’re far less productive in their pajamas. But apparently, for some, even the UK is too much to endure…
According to research from the Taxpayers’ Alliance seen by Guido a staggering 312 civil servants from the Departments for Transport, Energy and Net Zero, Culture and Media and the Ministry of Defence chose to work from abroad between 2021 and 2024, citing reasons like visiting family or other personal jaunts. Their destinations? A mix of sun-soaked escapes, including Cyprus, Kenya, Brunei, and various European hotspots. In 2021/22, 59 civil servants worked from outside the UK – by 2023/24, that number surged to 154, with a whopping 58 of them from the Ministry of Defence. Not as if there are wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East or anything…
Of those departments, 23 civil servants are still currently dialling in from overseas. The MoD released the salaries of 27 such staffers, though others remain hidden behind a veil of confidentiality. Over the last three years, the salaries of these globe-trotting pen-pushers have added up to a tidy sum of £1,249,825. The TPA‘s Joanna Marchong said “Civil servants get pay, pensions and perks frequently unavailable in the growth-generating private sector. Ministers need to consider whether these benefits deliver value for money for taxpayers.” Nice work if you can get it…
Paula Barker, Liverpool Wavertree MP backing Andy Burnham, told Times Radio there wouldn’t be trouble from the markets under Burnham:
“The markets will have to fall in line.”
