Civil servants can be MORE productive when they work from home, claims Angela Rayner – as she defends office attendance at her own department

Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has defended working-from-home arrangements for civil servants, arguing that staff can be just as productive, or more so, outside the office, even as scrutiny grows over the number of public sector workers not required to attend in person. Her comments follow Freedom of Information disclosures showing thousands of officials across Whitehall permanently work remotely, and contrast with the previous Conservative government's push under Jacob Rees-Mogg to get civil servants back into offices after the pandemic.

Figures from eight government departments showed 3,884 officials work from home permanently, including 2,413 at the Department for Work and Pensions, 688 at Defra and 492 at the Department for Education. At Rayner's own department, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, 71 staff had not been recorded visiting the office in over a year. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Rayner said she was "not a Jacob Rees-Mogg" needing to see staff physically present to know they were working, cited studies suggesting home working can boost productivity and reduce sickness levels, and attributed the UK's below-pre-pandemic public sector productivity to the cost of living crisis rather than office attendance patterns.