The Telegraph reports that civil servants (including HMRC) have been faking their attendance at the office.
Some staff, including at HMRC, are alleged to have faked in-person
working by connecting to their office Wi-Fi from a nearby car park
before returning home.
The phenomenon has become so commonplace that senior managers at the tax office dub it a “drive-by login”.
Just under 4,000 HMRC staff haven't been in the office at all for over 6 months. Just under 1,000 haven't been in for over a YEAR.
An HMRC official told of how office working had collapsed during the Covid-19 pandemic and has not recovered since.
He said “a lot of bad habits” were formed during Covid, adding: “You can go years at a time without seeing certain colleagues.”
Analysis of working patterns at HMRC revealed that 3,195 of its
workers had not been in an office for between six and 11 months, with
992 not attending for a year to 23 months. There were 182 workers who
did not go to work in-person for two years or more.
HMRC said some
of the absences were caused by sickness leave or an adjustment to
working patterns for staff with disabilities. The department employs
more than 70,500 people.
HMRC has also been accused of
allowing customer service levels to collapse. Last year, a report by MPs
found that almost 44,000 taxpayers were cut off after being on hold for over an hour with HMRC call handlers.
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