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Read moreCivil servants should face pay cut for working from home, a Minister suggests
Ministers may face a battle with unions as a push to get more civil servants back into Whitehall causes controversy.
A cabinet minister has suggested that those individuals who refuse to return to the office, after working from home for over a year, should have their pay cut.
The civil service union chief described this suggestion as “insulting” and said that ministers should be focussing on whether public services are being delivered, rather than where civil servants are physically working.
The Government had previously suggested that it would follow a “cautious” approach to civil servants returning to their offices, with a flexible approach as to how each department manages the process. A Government spokesman also stated that their approach would take advantage of hybrid working.
However, a cabinet minister has recently shown the opposite view, proposing that civil servants who refuse to come into the office should face a pay cut. The minister, who wants to see more employees back at their desks, claimed that penalising those staying at home would be reasonable because they were benefiting for not having to pay for travel.
“People who have been working from home aren’t paying their commuting costs, so they have had a de facto pay rise, so that is unfair on those who are going into work,” the minister said.
“If people aren’t going into work, they don’t deserve the terms and conditions they get if they are going into work.”
It has also been reported that one unidentified Government department is set to demand its workers to the office at least three days a week by October.
A Whitehall spokesperson added that “It’s hard to know who is deserving of a promotion when people are working remotely.”
In complete disagreement with this approach, Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA civil service union said, “These insulting comments from ministers and politicians only demonstrate that they are out of touch with modern working practices.”
“What should matter to ministers is whether public services are being delivered effectively, not where individual civil servants are sitting on a particular day.”
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How new house planning rules could change the high street
At the start of August 2021 new rules came into place via permitted development rights that allow cafes, shops, restaurants and gyms to be turned into residential developments.
According to a new study, conducted by University College London, this may mean that up to four out of five high street shops or units may one day be turned into housing.
The study explored how the new rules would affect high streets in Barnet, Crawley, Huntingdonshire, and Leicester.
They found that in Barnet 89 per cent of shops and other commercial buildings could be lost to residential conversion, while in Leicester and Crawley this stood at 77 per cent and in Huntingdonshire 75 per cent.
Fiona Howie chief executive of the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), which commissioned the report, said: “We recognise the need for more homes and the desire to regenerate high streets.
“But we need new homes to be high quality and for town centres to be able to provide a mixture of services and amenity space.”
Dr Ben Clifford, Dr Adam Dennett and Bin Chi, the report’s authors, added: “In some neighbourhoods, entire high streets run the risk of being converted into housing.
“Clearly, anywhere near this reduction in commercial premises – whether shops, cafés, restaurants, gyms, nurseries, or day centres – would rip the heart out of our communities. And once shops have been converted into homes, they are extremely difficult to convert back.”
The report from the TPCA and University College London suggests that conversions should be made through the planning system where local people and councillors would continue to have a say on the future of their high streets.
This, they say, would make sure shops and offices converted into homes are safe and built to higher standards.
Responding to the report, Lord Crisp, Co-Chair of the All-party Parliamentary Group on Global Health, said: “We know the profound impacts that people’s homes and communities can have on their health, wellbeing, and life chances.
“We must see the changing high streets as an opportunity to develop housing that promotes physical and mental health and wellbeing – a real opportunity to build back better after the pandemic. It requires vision, creativity and a real commitment to quality.”
Plans to increase probate fees are “unjustifiable”, legal regulator says
A major legal regulator in England and Wales has rallied against a proposed increase in probate fees.
The Law Society described the plans – which will see the cost of obtaining a grant of probate rise from £155 or £215 (for probate professionals or individuals, respectively) to a flat fee of £273 – as “unjustifiable”.
A grant of probate is a legal document confirming that the executors named on it are the people entitled to deal with the estate of the deceased.
But it was announced by the Government last month that the probate service was operating at a loss.
According to HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), the estimated processing costs of administering applications in 2018/19 was between £260 and £265 – meaning potentially hundreds of pounds are lost per application.
It was projected that the changes could raise up to £25 million each year.
But the Law Society says the plans are “unwelcome”, particularly when “grieving relatives are suffering because the service is still subject to significant delay”.
It was reported earlier this year that the probate backlog had reached 29,000 cases, with some bereaved families waiting up to 17 weeks to close an estate.
The delays were attributed to a surge in applications lodged in response to entirely separate plans to increase probate fees – which were ultimately scrapped in 2019 – and the closure of District Registries in favour of an underperforming online service, as well as an increase in the death rate due to Covid-19.
Commenting on the latest proposals, Law Society president I. Stephanie Boyce said the Government’s “persistence of raising fees in the probate service is worrying”.
“It is no secret the probate service has faced delays for people applying for probate grants or letters of administration. In 2020, people had to wait 12 to 14 weeks on average to receive their grant. This is unacceptable, the service must be timely and allow executors to settle a loved one’s estate,” she said.
“Any increase in fees must be reflected in the service provided. The online service was specifically designed to streamline the process and the UK government must get the system working efficiently before upping costs to both professional and non-professional users alike.”
The MoJ stressed, however, that the measures will not “generate any profit” for the Government and are “significantly different” from proposed fee increases in 2019, which were described as a “death stealth tax” at the time.
Commenting on the plans, An MoJ spokesperson said: “Every penny from these fees will go towards the cost of processing applications – meaning taxpayers will no longer be forced to subsidise them.”
Click here to learn more about the probate fee increases.
Click here to read the Law Society response.
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