0:00
What do you make of this? Because it's not just actually during the time that Labour have been in power
0:04
It's over five years, this study. Yeah, well, I think as taxpayers, we've got every right to expect civil servants to be doing their job well
0:12
to be productive. And I think that's the key. It's productivity. We know since the pandemic, productivity has dropped
0:21
And I think there are really serious questions. Obviously, some people might have exceptional circumstances
0:27
They might have an ill family member abroad or something for a temporary working from somewhere abroad
0:34
But that needs to be a real rarity. And I'm not surprised people are quite angry
0:39
Yeah, well, I mean, I could say that I have somebody who's sick abroad. Who's going to go over there and check? People could just make up stuff, as we know some people do
0:46
I'm not saying there shouldn't be a form of compassionate leave. But I'm saying that who's going to police it if you make up some long winded story
0:53
without having people monitor productivity that's impossible or it's expensive so i think
1:01
the working from home thing i'm with jacob reese mog and his post-it notes but i think there are
1:06
wider questions about our civic centers for instance in wolverhampton hours is half empty
1:12
most of the time they're looking to let bits of it and our city center economy is suffering from
1:17
no lunchtime trade young people aren't getting mentoring all of the work from home questions
1:23
need to be addressed. But I think certainly the thought of civil servants sipping pina
1:27
coladas and being less efficient is not going to sort of make us feel confident in taxes being spent wisely Yeah because a lot of those departments are pretty inefficient actually Do you think that
1:41
it should actually be a stipulation that if you are in the civil service, then you must live and
1:48
reside in the UK at the very least? I would have thought so, because we want our wage. I mean
1:56
If you live permanently abroad, that is a problem because somebody living here, paying taxes here, should be getting that work, investing back into the economy
2:05
But I think, yeah, unless it's an exceptional circumstance, I think that I have problems with it
2:12
It does seem amazing that whilst we all suffer, a lot of us working extremely hard and some jobs, there's no way you can work from home, that taxpayers are funding this sort of behaviour
2:23
I get it if it's exceptional, but 2,000 people over five years is quite a few
2:28
Does that sound like a bit of a large number? It is a lot
2:32
And I think we have to come back to productivity because that's what matters
2:36
If somebody's working from home and they are being as productive or more productive
2:42
they could argue that it saves them commuting time. It helps with, you know, looking after a relative or whatever
2:49
But if people expect to be able to go abroad regularly and that becomes the norm, we have a whole load of other questions to answer about our public buildings, about the cost of keeping those buildings and about, you know, whether our productivity could be significantly increased. Yeah
