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The sense of entitlement is, at once, both infuriating and entirely unsurprising.
Pampered Scottish Government officials have grown accustomed, since the
Coronavirus
pandemic forced the temporary closure of offices, to working from home.
This emergency protocol was established for excellent reasons: in the months before a vaccine was created, Covid-19 presented a devastating threat to life. Of course it made sense for workers across the public and private sectors to carry out their duties far from the risk of infection.
But, thanks to the development of effective vaccines against the deadly virus, there is no longer any need for employees to stay away from their offices. Indeed, it is some years since such a measure was necessary, or even appropriate.
Yet, long after the threat from the virus was diminished, many Scottish Government civil servants continue to work from home. And many of them appear to have decided that’s the way things should stay.
For most Scots workers, going back to the office was not a matter of choice. It was, simply, a return to normality. But Scottish Government bureaucrats don’t reckon those rules apply to them.
Following an order that they should return to their offices for just two days a week, toys were ejected from prams across the country. How dare anyone expect these very important people to actually turn up at work?
An edict stating that 9,300 Scottish Government staff who have been allowed “hybrid” working arrangements since Covid should start spending two days a week in offices by autumn fuelled a backlash among mandarins, with some demanding special treatment simply for getting back behind their desks.
Using the government’s internal communications network, Saltire, staff bitterly complained about the hardship they would face if they had to actually turn up at the office to do the jobs for which they are so handsomely paid.
There were been demands for a swimming pool at the government’s Victoria Quay building to reopen, complaints that making staff come to work is unfair on their pets, and even questions over whether workers’ human rights are being breached by the order.
And, of course, there were calls for a pay rise, as if simply carrying out one’s contractual obligations represented a great personal sacrifice.
Senior managers within the Scottish Government want to cut back on the amount of time people work from home for the very good reason that they wish to boost productivity. It turns out that leaving entitled bureaucrats to their own devices is not good for efficiency.
I find it impossible to disagree with Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr’s view that those civil servants now complaining about the order to go to the office for a mere two days a week are “divorced from reality”.
Should you need persuading this is so, consider this comment from one civil servant: “Many have made big decisions based on balance — whether that be starting a family, getting a pet, getting rid of cars; down to things like starting a new fitness class, being able to take that longer lunchtime walk for their mental health or meet a friend after work because there is no commute. The prospect of that now being taken away is undoubtedly causing stress and anxiety.”
The wee lambs.
For workers across the private sector, refusal to come to work would be considered a matter of gross misconduct and instant dismissal would follow.
These same rules should apply to civil servants.
While the backlash from bureaucrats is enough to make the blood boil, who can say they find it surprising?
The culture of any organisation is set at the top and we have grown grimly accustomed to those who govern us acting as if they are entitled to special treatment.
We have watched as First Minister after First Minister has stood behind colleagues who – in the private sector – would have been sacked for incompetence. Why would a civil servant feel the need to perform their duties to any kind of acceptable standard when, for example, health secretary Neil Gray – of taking-a-limo-to-the-pub fame – remains in post? Why would a mandarin feel compelled to turn up to work when so many members of the Government act as if the standards by which the rest of us live and work are for the little people?
There would be something comical about highly-paid civil servants complaining about having to sit at their desks if Scotland’s public service were not in such a parlous state.
The SNP have made swingeing cuts to departmental budgets, stripping back services from social work to health to bin collections.
Meanwhile, ministers have retained a monomaniacal focus on the matter of Scottish independence. Not only have those in charge put their constitutional obsession before, for example, the need for a working NHS, they have diverted staff from vitally important work.
All of the hours spent planning for a second independence referendum that the Scottish Government has no right to run could – should – have been spent on the issues that truly matter to voters.
Amid the fear and anxiety created by the pandemic, there were some positives, not least the creation of a sense of community. As old social hierarchies crumbled, the feeling that we were all in it together was very real, indeed. The urge to play one’s part was strong and reassuringly widespread.
For most of us, life has got back to normal but for others, the need for friends and family to rally round endures.
There are those, of course, who live with the physical effects of Coronavirus long after infection. Others continue to pay a heavy financial cost.
The UK Government’s furlough scheme ensured wages were paid during the worst months of the pandemic but countless jobs lost – particularly in the retail and hospitality sectors – look unlikely ever to be replaced.
The “suffering” of a highly-paid mandarin, asked to come to work two days a week – without even having access to a swimming pool – doesn’t compare to that of someone whose career was destroyed by the pandemic, does it?
There is a case for the intervention of First Minister John Swinney, here.
I suggest he contacts those civil servants complaining about the return-to-the-office demand and makes them a generous offer: They can do as they are told or they can leave and find work more suited to their fragile temperaments.
There are plenty of hardworking Scots ready to step up.
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