We keep hearing these stories all the time. Public sector staff, supposedly servants of this country, doing their jobs from exotic places around the world, paid for by us, the taxpayer.
Well, according to a Freedom of Information release revealed by the Taxpayers Alliance, 2000 public sector workers over the past five years have been given permission to do their UK based jobs from foreign countries like Japan, Australia and even the Maldives.
Nice work if you get it. Given the nickname as quango-crats, reasons for these people to work from abroad despite being based in the UK, include working whilst visiting partners and family, or extending trips outside of annual leave to cover urgent staffing shortages whilst on holiday.
So basically extending a foreign visit and working from there. It's outrageous - which one of us here can get away with that?
Nana Akua hits out at civil service workers being allowed to operate from 'beaches' around the world
GB News
I can hear it now - 'Oh, by the way, boss, you know that holiday I have taken in the Maldives, can I extend it and work from there?' Hardly.
Richard Holden MP called it disgraceful and said sun worshipping quango-crats seem more interested in working on their tan lines than working on the British people.
Some of those guilty of enabling this practice include the HMS Inspectorate of Probation, the centre for Environmental Fisheries and the ONS. The latter have granted the most permissions for it.
So whilst you and I struggle to keep things afloat, a load of unelected people who have extraordinary amounts of power to steer the destiny of this country are languishing in foreign paradises, assisting to create policy that they may never feel the effects of whilst abroad.
Joanna Marchong, investigations campaign manager of the Taxpayers Alliance, said: "Taxpayers are growing ever more curious about what on earth a vast network of quangos are actually doing, and why so much power has been devolved to them.
"Ministers have handed significant control of services and policy to unelected bodies frequently not based in London, limiting further their ability to hold them to account. And it's now been revealed that many staff are not just based outside London, they're often not based in the UK at all."
A Government spokesperson said: "We expect civil servants to spend the majority of the time working from the office, and working outside of the UK must only be applied for in exceptional personal circumstances such as bereavement.
"Many of these organisations stated do not employ civil servants and have their own working abroad policies. We are currently reviewing all arm's length bodies to examine where organisations can be closed, merged or have powers brought back into the department."
Well, in my view it should be mandatory for civil servants or public sector workers paid for by us, the taxpayer, to at least at the very least, be do their jobs in the country. And it is outrageous that some of them don't.
