Five blunders caused by civil servants working from home

Working from home has led to an alarming decline in standards from government institutions as up to three quarters of civil servants continue to work remotely. 

Ministers have been told by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for government efficiency, to bring their civil servants back to the office after the Government was accused of hypocrisy for urging private employees to go back to work while the majority of civil servants were allowed to do their jobs from home.

Government departments have still been using the pandemic as an excuse for poor customer service two years on from Britain’s first lockdown. Public sector standards of service have plummeted since the rise of home working, prompting hundreds of thousands of complaints while taxpayer-funded offices have been left empty. 

The continuation of home working in parts of the economy has put an estimated 77,000 retail and hospitality jobs in danger, according to one study, and pubs, cafes and restaurants in city and town centres stand to lose £3bn of income a year.

Here are some of the biggest government blunders caused by home working over the past year.

People who turn 66 have faced long delays to receive their state pension, waiting months to receive their first payment because of “staffing issues” at the Department for Work & Pensions during the pandemic. 

Some pensioners were left in financial distress after widespread delays to their state pension payments. The pensions minister admitted to the delays.

The DWP has ranked among the worst Whitehall departments for office attendance, with just 27pc of staff coming into the office, according to civil service figures. 

One 68-year-old pensioner said her sister had been reduced to tears after a DWP official told her she “wouldn’t starve” and “there were plenty of food banks around” while she waited for £1,590 in overdue payments.

Last year HM Revenue & Customs scrapped its targets for phone waiting times after service levels plummeted. Some commentators blamed the fall in standards on its working-from-home policy.

Millions of people seeking help and guidance from the taxman had to deal with what one accountant called a “staggering” drop in customer service standards during the pandemic. Nearly 1.3 million people were forced to wait more than 20 minutes before getting through to someone for help with their taxes in March 2021, official figures released at the time showed. 

Waiting times were almost three times worse than during the same period the previous year. However, HMRC spent millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on home office devices for staff.

More than 500,000 drivers waited at least two and a half months for their licences following mass delays caused by industrial action. The backlog was caused by civil servants from the Public & Commercial Services Union who were reluctant to return to the office even when told that they could. 

Some of those caught by the delays risked losing their job without their licence and missed out on holidays abroad. Elderly drivers who needed to renew their licence were among the hardest hit; some pensioners waited 12 weeks for their new licence if they applied by post. It is mandatory for over-70s to renew their driving licence every three years.

Holidaymakers have had to cancel trips abroad because of delays in the processing of passport applications. 

Anyone who applies to renew their passport has been advised to allow up to 10 weeks, more than three times the period needed before coronavirus. Almost five million people delayed applying for a British passport in 2020 and 2021, according to the Post Office, which blamed a sudden surge in demand. 

Figures obtained by The Telegraph have shown that the number of passports to have gone missing in the post has doubled in less than a year. Some applicants have been left waiting months for their documents. 

Those forced to wait longer for their passport have said they have missed job opportunities, holidays and even funerals abroad. 

Waiting times for criminal record checks on public sector applicants more than doubled after the Home Office allowed its employees to work from home. 

The Disclosure & Barring Service, which is used by companies to weed out applicants with a criminal record, said remote working had “tested our ability” to hit targets amid a surge in demand for its services.

Private sector employers suffered from the backlogs. Firms that operate in the “gig economy”, such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber, rely on the DBS to check new staff for previous convictions. Some hired extra workers to cope with surging demand for takeaways during the pandemic.