According to whistleblowers, staff are routinely sidestepping rules requiring a minimum of three days in the office. Managers are said to have 'no control' over remote workers, and offices on Fridays are described as 'like the Mary Celeste' by an insider. At HMRC, staff are alleged to have gamed attendance systems by connecting to office Wi-Fi from nearby car parks before heading home, a practice senior managers refer to as 'drive-by login'.
Internal data shows significant gaps in attendance at HMRC: 3,195 staff had not been into an office for between 6 and 11 months, 992 had not attended for 12 to 23 months, and 182 had not been seen in person for two years or more. HMRC employs more than 70,500 people. HMRC said some absences relate to sickness, disability adjustments and alternative working patterns.
like the Mary Celeste
A civil servant told The Daily Telegraph that office attendance is often tokenistic, with staff in for a couple of hours and then disappearing, but still recorded as attending for the day. Another HMRC whistleblower said remote working habits have hardened since the pandemic. HMRC has faced criticism for long call waiting times, with almost 44,000 taxpayers cut off after being on hold for more than an hour last year.
At the Land Registry, 200 staff have not been into the office for more than six months, including 131 absent for over a year and 78 for more than two years. The Land Registry is currently dealing with severe backlogs, with some services delayed by up to 18 months. The Office for National Statistics has faced scrutiny over extremely low attendance rates in some offices, with figures in one week showing levels as low as 9%.