How ironic - some HMRC staff essentially committing fraud.

Primrose53

I think there is some truth about these WFH reports.

www.wymondhamandattleboroughmercury.co.uk/news/26021202.norfolk-police-officer-resigned-faking-remote-working/

This detective constable pretended to be working at home by key jamming. She simply used a bottle of nail varnish!

I met a woman in a waiting area at the hospital recently who worked from home. She worked for a Housing Association. She went to a quiet corner of the waiting area and said she had to log on at a certain time. She said if she did so they would think she was working.

If there’s a way round anything, people will find it!

Indeed, I don’t disagree BUT these are exactly the same folk who pull similar stunts to get paid for doing nothing, who don’t work from home.

It’s not WFH that’s the problem it is p**s poor local direct line management and grifter staff.

Primrose53

I think there is some truth about these WFH reports.

www.wymondhamandattleboroughmercury.co.uk/news/26021202.norfolk-police-officer-resigned-faking-remote-working/

This detective constable pretended to be working at home by key jamming. She simply used a bottle of nail varnish!

I met a woman in a waiting area at the hospital recently who worked from home. She worked for a Housing Association. She went to a quiet corner of the waiting area and said she had to log on at a certain time. She said if she did so they would think she was working.

If there’s a way round anything, people will find it!

The officer rightly was made subject to disciplinary action and she was remorseful.

The vast majority of employers support employees attending hospital appointments. In fact I think claims can be made against employers who do not allow employees to attend hospital visits. Better just to be upfront and honest and inform the employer of the hospital appointment.

Of the very few employers not supportive of hooasitla visits time can usually be made up.

No reason the throw generally positive WFH arrangements out with the bath water....

Why was the officer remorseful LemonJam? I wonder if she was ashamed of her behaviour or sorry she was caught!

LemonJam

Primrose53

I think there is some truth about these WFH reports.

www.wymondhamandattleboroughmercury.co.uk/news/26021202.norfolk-police-officer-resigned-faking-remote-working/

This detective constable pretended to be working at home by key jamming. She simply used a bottle of nail varnish!

I met a woman in a waiting area at the hospital recently who worked from home. She worked for a Housing Association. She went to a quiet corner of the waiting area and said she had to log on at a certain time. She said if she did so they would think she was working.

If there’s a way round anything, people will find it!

The officer rightly was made subject to disciplinary action and she was remorseful.

The vast majority of employers support employees attending hospital appointments. In fact I think claims can be made against employers who do not allow employees to attend hospital visits. Better just to be upfront and honest and inform the employer of the hospital appointment.

Of the very few employers not supportive of hooasitla visits time can usually be made up.

No reason the throw generally positive WFH arrangements out with the bath water....

Of course she was remorseful because she got caught! Had she not been caught she would have probably carried on pretending she was working. What she did was wrong and most right minded people would agree that it’s wrong.

The woman I mentioned was not attending an appointment she was taking a relative for treatment. We were both there for several hours and had a very interesting discussion about knitting and crochet.

We'll never know what is in someone else's mind, but does it really matter? It's fraud, whether someone is sorry or not.

I've worked from home since the 80s, and whilst the flexibility to be there for the gas man, or to go to children's nativity plays etc was great, on the whole it meant I worked far more hours than if I'd clocked in and out. I regularly answered emails at 10.00pm and at weekends, and at busy times would be working into the night to meet deadlines. I remember once there was a work to rule. We were asked to record all times we were working, and my 37 hours were up by Wednesday afternoon. Flexibility works to the employers' advantage, even when they don't use it to overload staff hours. Things like Saturday Open Days wouldn't happen without people being flexible, and it is rare that there is another day during the week that they can take off in lieu, even if they wanted to swap a weekend day with family for a Tuesday at home.

I realise that some jobs can't be done from home (mine could, but only if I wasn't needed to give a lecture or attend a meeting etc, so I had to arrange things around that), but I really don't understand why so many people seem to want to see others prevented from doing so. If they are your employees, then fine - you are paying, so can ask for what hours you like, and if you find you can attract good candidates to work them, there's no problem. But when it's people working for others, you (generic) have no way of knowing how hard they are working, any more than you know about the ones in the office who are doing online shopping, or disappearing for smoke breaks, or gossiping to colleagues.

When people have long been out of the workforce themselves, but complain about current workers WFH, I wonder what they think is happening. Most workplaces have changed out of all recognition, even since the 90s, for better or worse.

I'm not sure how much truth there us in these headlines. However I would like know just why it takes the Land Registry and the Office of Public Guardian so long - months in many cases - to deal with things.My DH deals with both in a work capacity and the frustration caused by countless delays can cause huge stress to people.Often when going through already stressful times such as house moves,bereavement or trying to process powers of attorney. It often seems a very inefficient service and needs a shake up.

I used to work from home some of the time, from the early 90’s, my project was with various sites in the USA, so the time difference meant late evenings. Through to when I retired early in 2016, large new building site, out the door at 6am to stop builders firing up machinery outside of hours. It was called flexible working, I was grateful to be trusted that I got my job done.

Civil servants were not allowed to run businesses at one time - I knew 2 who did - and one of them was an HMRC employee 👍☘️

PamelaJ1

Why was the officer remorseful LemonJam? I wonder if she was ashamed of her behaviour or sorry she was caught!

Because in your link the disciplinary hearing accepted that she was remorseful!

Washerwoman

I'm not sure how much truth there us in these headlines. However I would like know just why it takes the Land Registry and the Office of Public Guardian so long - months in many cases - to deal with things.My DH deals with both in a work capacity and the frustration caused by countless delays can cause huge stress to people.Often when going through already stressful times such as house moves,bereavement or trying to process powers of attorney. It often seems a very inefficient service and needs a shake up.

Land Registry delays have been a problem for several years now and very frustrating for property owners, buyers, sellers, developers, lenders and conveyancers alike.

There has been a high volume and back log of cases since 2020 as a result of employees being furloughed etc. This lead to extended processing times. The LR is now also in transition from paper based service to digital processing. The process includes quality checks designed to reduce errors in the transition.

The Land Registry wants to recruit more workers to reduce the back log- budgets and stories like the one today in the Telegraph does not help their case.

LemonJam, Civil Service numbers also grew after Brexit. Jobs and responsibilities previously done in Brussels had to be repatriated. Not only that, but the Brexit process itself generated an enormous amount of work.

A bloated service that doesn’t deliver well for many. Land Registry, Probate, DVLR you name it. Calls ‘on hold’ for up to an hour? Better believe it folks that’s the reality.

Should civil servants be allowed to work from home?

- wrong question.

Should the Civil Service be cut by:
a) 75%
b) 80%
c) 90%

A former Director from a Civil Service department said and I quote:

“Work from home mandates destroyed my team. I fought against it, but was completely overruled by senior female managers excited by what they saw as "the future of work". WFH works for a few, but it destroys team spirit, communication, learning and productivity. For all of these reasons it should be stopped [and I haven't even mentioned the quiet quitting]”

Should be instant dismissal, no wonder you never get through.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

A bloated service that doesn’t deliver well for many. Land Registry, Probate, DVLR you name it. Calls ‘on hold’ for up to an hour? Better believe it folks that’s the reality.

Should civil servants be allowed to work from home?

- wrong question.

Should the Civil Service be cut by:
a) 75%
b) 80%
c) 90%

I'm confused. If those divisions are "bloated", how come they have such a big work backlog?

Saying the Civil Service should be cut means ordinary people losing their jobs. Yes Civil Servants are people too with families and mortgages. I was one for almost 40 years. We took a lot of abuse.

Because shirkers don’t t plough through their work twaddle.

Rees-Mogg was working on it until the woke Tories took control.

All you need to do is hire Elon Musk for a week to sort it out like he did with Twitter.

It’s easy, just say “if you are not at your desk at 9am Monday morning, I will accept that as your resignation”.

Well how come there’s (many) more of them yet delivery of service is so rubbish?

In August 1981 the US Air Traffic Controllers (about 13,000 of them) went on strike. Reagan gave them 48 hours to return to work. About 1,200 of them did so, and then Reagan immediately fired those that refused to return to work. We should do the same with public sector shirkers.

Well we have DOGE right here😄😄😄.

How did that go?

I think it’d be better than what we (don’t) have right now WhitewaveMk2.

Hmm.

Can I refer you to Reform and KCC.

LemonJam

PamelaJ1

Why was the officer remorseful LemonJam? I wonder if she was ashamed of her behaviour or sorry she was caught!

Because in your link the disciplinary hearing accepted that she was remorseful!

You’re getting confused. It was my link.

You know as well as I do that people will claim anything to clear their name or get a lesser sentence. The disciplinary Hearing obviously fell for it!

twaddle

LemonJam, Civil Service numbers also grew after Brexit. Jobs and responsibilities previously done in Brussels had to be repatriated. Not only that, but the Brexit process itself generated an enormous amount of work.

Exactly twaddle.

Primrose53

LemonJam

PamelaJ1

Why was the officer remorseful LemonJam? I wonder if she was ashamed of her behaviour or sorry she was caught!

Because in your link the disciplinary hearing accepted that she was remorseful!

You’re getting confused. It was my link.

You know as well as I do that people will claim anything to clear their name or get a lesser sentence. The disciplinary Hearing obviously fell for it!

I think you are getting confused Primrose53. I did say "in your link".