 in Kew Gardens, west London, which is just 0.2C shy of the hottest temperature recorded in 2023. The peak makes it the hottest September day since 2016. On Wednesday morning, The Telegraph observed some 884 civil servants entering 2 Marsham Street, which houses the Home Office , the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. A Freedom of Information request carried out by Sky News last year found that there were 2,012 desks allocated for the Home Office, 1,145 desks allocated to Defra and 1,170 allocated to Levelling up, with a total of 4,327. This means that just one in five employees may have been working in the office rather than remotely on Wednesday based on the numbers observed arriving at work. The most recently published government figures for occupancy rates for the departments, for the week beginning August 21 showed that 51 per cent of employees were working in the office at Defra, 49 per cent were at work at the office in the Home Office and 62 per cent were at work for the Department for Levelling Up. New guidance Last week, The Telegraph reported that Downing Street is set to issue new guidance to all government departments as part of a crackdown on working from home which sees a 'Tuesday to Thursday' office culture within the civil service. Led by Jeremy Quin, the Paymaster General, the push will be launched to raise public sector productivity and clamp down on decisions being made from home on an ad hoc basis. Mr Quin said he was concerned that working at home was being treated informally in Whitehall and believes that most employees work better in the office than they do at home. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has ordered a review of public sector productivity to try to boost it by at le){kind=link}
The Telegraph counts civil servants entering Home Office, Defra and Levelling Up building as heatwave hits London
Around 20 per cent of civil servants across three Whitehall departments appeared to work in the office on one of the hottest days of the year so far.
On Wednesday, it reached a high of 32C (89.6F) in Kew Gardens, west London, which is just 0.2C shy of the hottest temperature recorded in 2023. The peak makes it the hottest September day since 2016.
On Wednesday morning, The Telegraph observed some 884 civil servants entering 2 Marsham Street, which houses the Home Office, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
A Freedom of Information request carried out by Sky News last year found that there were 2,012 desks allocated for the Home Office, 1,145 desks allocated to Defra and 1,170 allocated to Levelling up, with a total of 4,327.