Any one of the 840,000 callers to HMRC who went ignored in January can safely assume that civil servants were busy elsewhere – at home “taking the cats for a walk” and “gardening“. According to a whistleblower in the department, HMRC’s new-age commitment to “flexible working” has led to paper shufflers concentrating on gaming on their PlayStations rather than deal with the taxpayers who keep them employed. No wonder they kicked up such a fuss when John Glen criticised them for still shirking from home…
This is apparently an “open secret” within pencil-pushing circles, yet they still claim to be “under-resourced”. Still, they did have enough to find £4.5 million down the back of the sofa for “diversity coordinators”. Good to know the blob’s got their priorities straight…
Sinead Cook, a senior civil servant in Wales’ top public services watchdog Ombudsman for Wales, has resigned after being suspended for being blatantly anti-Tory on social media. Cook took to Twitter in since deleted posts to bash the government for being “morally reprehensible” for the trying to push through the Rwanda bill that was “incompatible with the Human Rights Act“, gracefully signing off “F**k the tories“. So much for ‘independent and impartial’…
The Welsh Tories have blasted the taxpayer-funded organisation, accusing it of blatant bias towards Labour by turning a blind eye to complaints of their politicians while cracking down hard on any whisper against Tories. Wales Secretary David TC Davies said:
“It’s an outrage that someone whose job is to investigate complaints against councillors has been making vicious political posts online. The whole edifice of the Ombudsman’s office needs to be replaced by something truly independent to serve the people of Wales.”
It’s not the first time a civil servant has had to hit the road over their lefty views. At least the new First Minister had time to relax on holiday before coming back home to this…
You’d think with the highest burden since the war the UK’s tax overlords would have enough on their plate to bother coming into the office. Not so. So far this year only 53% of HMRC staff bothered to turn up to their desks at swanky 100 Parliament Street. The worst performer of all government departments…
HMRC was the only department to have below 50% of its desks occupied last year – that’s compared to 80% at the MoD. This comes as HMRC tries to close its own helpline for half of the year while spending £8 million annually on a whopping 155 press staff. Meanwhile PCS, the civil service union, is ramping up threats to strike if it civil servants don’t get a “shorter week for the same pay“. Does the government need to start funding treatment for work shyness?
PCS, the civil service union, is gearing up its campaign to strike again this year over being told to turn up to work by the government. Union officials were handing out flashy leaflets to staff at 2 Marsham Street (housing the Home Office and DLUHC) this week. The PCS says its “sustained, targeted” strikes have worked before and will work again to “exert maximum pressure” on the government. With the number of civil servants constantly moaning about having to turn up to the office three days per week, the campaign could get traction…
The union’s pay demands are as follows:
On that last point a bemused and overworked SpAd tells Guido: “Wouldn’t we all”…
Number crunchers over at the Office for National Statistics are being balloted for strike action over a requirement to come into the office for a whopping two days per week. Just over a thousand ONS staff were told late last year that they would need to spend 20% of their time in the office from January, ramping up to 40% in April. PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote is demanding “flexible and sustainable ways of working” instead of actually turning up. The bar for civil servants is on the floor…
In another snub to the government, the civil service’s main union PCS is gearing up for a national strike ballot of 160,000 pen-pushers across 171 government departments from March 18th to May 13th. It’s as if working from home half the week isn’t already enough…
The union’s list of demands include increased annual leave to 35 days, London weighting of a minimum £5,000 per year and of course, “a significant shortening of the working week with no loss of pay.” If only their passion to do as little work as possible could translate into getting on with their actual jobs…
John Glen, the Cabinet Office minister, has swiftly dismissed the proposal for a shorter workweek, reiterating what Guido has said before: “the emerging evidence for a four-day working week is slim at best”. The blob was never going to get back to work without a fight…
