Council staff expected to work three days at office

Council staff will be expected to work at least three days a week from the office as part of a new policy, a mayor said.

Conservative Tom Wootton confirmed it would apply to "office-based crews" only at Bedford Council, after some workers felt "very lonely".

He told BBC Three Counties Radio presenter Jonathan Vernon-Smith that "asking them to come in to work as part of a team was really important".

He added that the change was part of a Stability Plan that had originally been discussed at a meeting of its executive in April.

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic saw many people working from home, and figures from the Office for National Statistics suggested more than a quarter of working adults in Great Britain were still hybrid working in autumn 2024.

Wootton posted on social media that he was reversing what he called the previous administration's "lax approach to remote working".

He said "collaboration, visibility and a strong workplace culture matter" and claimed that "you do not build that on Teams calls from the sofa".

"This is part of my Stability Plan, a broader mission to drive up productivity, professionalism, and pride in public service," he wrote.

"The future of this council rests on a high-performance culture where openness and innovation are not just buzzwords, they are daily practice. Residents expect more. We are raising the bar."

Wootton told the JVS show "that asking the authorities 1,740 full-time staff to come in three days a week was a nice compromise" as "everybody used to come in" and "never thought anything of it".

He added he "loved Teams calls" for speaking to people outside the borough, but that there was a "time and a place for them", and "getting together and talking with people you are working with" was also important.

A Lib Democrat spokesman was critical of the mayor's approach to the three-day policy.

In a statement it said: "The Liberal Democrat Group deplores the mayor's recent social media criticisms in which he suggests council employees are offering less than their full potential with his lazy characterisation of 'taking Teams calls from the sofa'.

"Any staff, public or private, deserve better than to learn about changes to their future working conditions on social media."

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