More than 100 government buildings to close as civil servants shun return to the office

More than 100 Government buildings will be closed as civil servants switch to permanent flexible home working and quit London.

Whitehall chiefs have identified more than 100 leases on properties in London that could be axed, including the Ministry of Justice HQ in Petty France, central London, as civil servants move to regional offices and adopt more flexible working from home.

Most Whitehall departments have staff on rotas coming in two or three times a week, although it has emerged that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) only has staff coming in one day a week.

Details of the exodus from London have been revealed by Alex Chisholm, the Cabinet Office permanent secretary, who said 50 of the 100-plus leases had so far been terminated or were being ended as part of the plans to shrink the size of the Government’s London property estate.

Regional hubs

At the same time, properties for new hubs are being established in cities such as Wolverhampton, Stoke and Darlington, which has offset some of the savings from ending leases in London.

Mr Chisholm said it would not only save money but also make the Government less remote from the regions, which include many of the “Red Wall” constituencies captured by Boris Johnson at the last election.

“It’s going to be a major net saving overall, billions of pounds a year will be the saving from that over time, plus of course all the benefits that come from getting closer to the communities we serve and having a more diverse group of people to work with," he said.

It comes after Mr Chisholm also predicted many civil servants will continue to work from home permanently after the pandemic.

“We have found that we can move to a greater number of people working more flexibly, both working from home and in many cases in offices across the whole of the UK,” Mr Chisholm told MPs.

He suggested that letting people work flexibly would also allow the civil service to shrink further its Whitehall footprint. Since 2010, the size of the Government property estate has fallen by more than 25 per cent, saving £1 billion a year.

Only 1 in 4 civil servants back

It comes just days after Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccines minister, admitted that just one in four civil servants in his department were back in the office. In the business department, sources said there plans for staff to be required to come in two days a week.

Elsewhere, the Treasury has been largely empty throughout the summer recess, with insiders stating that while there has been a slight increase in recent days it remained “pretty quiet”.

However, in the Cabinet Office, which coordinates Government work across Whitehall, most civil servants are said to be back in the office.

A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The government is saving the taxpayer billions each year by reducing the cost of the estate, has lowered the annual running cost by £1.5bn since 2010, and raised more than £5bn by selling off sites that are no longer needed."

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “As a national organisation with buildings across the country, and in line with the Government's Places for Growth agenda, we will carefully consider the future of our building in Petty France as we move towards the end of the lease. We do not comment on commercial negotiations.”

The existing lease runs until 2028 but there is a break clause in 2026.