19-07-2025
Lord Hermer's departments spent £1m to help staff work from home
Government departments headed by Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, have spent more than £1m on equipment to enable their staff to work from home, figures reveal.
The information, released by the Attorney General's Office in response to parliamentary questions tabled by a former Tory cabinet minister, show that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the Government Legal Department (GLD), and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) spent at least £1.24m over the past three years on remote-working equipment.
As a whole, government agencies linked to seven Whitehall departments have spent around £3m on monitors, desks and other equipment, despite a ministerial push for public sector workers to return to the office.
Other big spenders included the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) – a public body sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions – which spent £955,099 since 2022/23.
Lord Hermer has been in charge of the legal departments since being appointed when Labour took power last July, and the figures also cover the previous two years of Tory government.
Sir Stephen Timms, the social security minister, claimed the high cost of remote-working equipment 'mainly relates to provision of equipment for new starters, and HSE has increased its staff numbers in this period mainly due to becoming the building safety regulator'.
Shimeon Lee, a policy analyst at the TaxPayers' Alliance, told The Telegraph: 'Taxpayers will be dismayed to know that we are still investing in a work from home culture. Remote working has become the norm in the public sector, with little regard for productivity, accountability or value for money.
'While families grapple with squeezed services and sky-high taxes, officials are kitting out home offices at their expense. Ministers must get a grip and put the public back at the heart of public service.'
The figures were revealed in a series of written parliamentary questions tabled by Sir John Hayes, a former Tory Cabinet minister.
Sir John Hayes, the former minister who tabled the questions, told The Telegraph: 'Productivity has dipped in recent times and never recovered to its pre-Covid levels. It's probably the greatest macroeconomic challenge facing this Government. Unless it improves, it will stymie economic performance.
'The assumption that if you spend more and put more people into systems, you will get better outputs, ignores how productive they are. Remote working will further limit productivity and may make things worse.
'People work best when they are with others. The interactions between individuals inspire creativity and productivity. To deny that is to deny the fundamentals of effective working.'
Whitehall has set 60pc office working minimum
Last year, Whitehall chiefs agreed that 60 per cent office attendance – three days a week – was the minimum expected of staff. Many public bodies, including the CPS and Ofgem, only have a 40 per cent, or two days a week, requirement to work from an official building.
Meanwhile, Ofgem, the UK's independent energy regulator, spent £396,486.26 on equipment to help staff work from home.
Last year, The Telegraph revealed that the regulator was paying £3.5m a year for its luxury Canary Wharf offices despite seven out of eight of its employees working from home on a typical day.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy minister, said the total spent on working from home equipment for government departments 'reflected an increased headcount to deliver additional remit for key government priorities, and steps to reduce its London office footprint to save money'.
