Ministers have been accused of mixed messages over flexible working after a week of briefings and counter-briefings.
Peter Cheese, co-chair of the government’s Flexible Working Taskforce, said comments by some ministers about a “big push” to send civil servants back to the office were completely at odds with the new working culture he had been asked to entrench.
The taskforce comprises 20 business groups, trade unions and Whitehall departments and was set up in 2018. It was asked by the government earlier this year to look into embedding flexible working into Whitehall work patterns.
Cheese warned that comments about staff deserving a pay cut for working at home smacked of bad management and encouraged presenteeism.
