Just 317 of 2,245 staff at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) were present at its headquarters by noon on a recent Friday, researchers from the Centre for Government Reform (CGR) observed. This means more than three-quarters of the building's 1,395 available spaces were empty.
CGR researchers counted staff entering Caxton House, the DWP's central London office, between 7 a.m. and noon. They recorded 26 arrivals between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m., 114 by 9 a.m., 220 by 10 a.m., 278 by 11 a.m., and finally 317 by midday. This figure represents 14% of the office's total headcount.
The findings come amid increasing scrutiny of civil servant attendance, with many departments reportedly failing to meet the government's target of 60% in-office presence per week. For the DWP to meet this target at Caxton House, approximately 1,350 staff would need to be present on an average day.
Mike Wood, a spokesman for the Conservative Party's Cabinet Office, stated, "It's little wonder Britain has a benefits bill spiralling out of control when the department responsible for tackling it can't even get its own staff to turn up for work."
Ameer Kotecha, CGR chief executive, commented, "This epitomises a system where rules are set but not enforced, and where nobody seems to be measuring if the public is getting value from the estate it funds."
A DWP spokesman defended the department's attendance, saying, "This is a flimsy basis for sweeping claims about an entire department. We publish data on in-office attendance, and ours shows that we are meeting published targets."