Capacity issues cause recruitment freeze at two DfE offices

New recruits to the Department for Education cannot work from two of its regional offices due to limited desk space.

The DfE’s Bristol and Nottingham offices have “site controls” in place, meaning only existing civil servants already assigned to those locations can work there.

Asked in a freedom of information request for more information about the site controls, the DfE said the controls are in place to ensure it “does not exceed its capacity at this site, as available desk space is limited”.

“The implication is that no new recruits to DfE will be able to join at Nottingham, and existing staff will not be able to transfer their contractual location to Nottingham.”

The head of site can approve recruitment to these two sites by exception “prioritising hard-to-source skills and locally-facing work”, the DfE added.

It follows an incident in 2022 when staff at the Sheffield office struggled to evacuate following discovery of a “suspect package” because of overcrowding.

The department has asked staff to work from their offices more often, but the Sheffield building has nearly double the number of staff than desks.

Staff outnumbered desks by almost two-to-one across DfE’s 12 offices that year. Bristol had 95 desks for 299. The department’s staff are expected to spend 60 per cent of the week in the office.

Office closures in the works

The department is also planning six office closures in Leeds, Newcastle, Peterborough, Croydon, Watford and Exeter. It would reportedly impact 359 staff.

Staff in the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union voted between May and July on whether to strike, warning “hundreds of staff face disruption, relocation or redundancy”.

But the ballot did not achieve the 50 per cent turnout threshold needed for industrial action.

Of 718 votes, 74.76 per cent were prepared to take strike action and 88.22 per cent were prepared to take action short of strike.

The PCS did not provide the percentage of members who voted, but confirmed it was below the threshold.

Fran Heathcote, PCS general secretary, previously said members were faced with “impossible choices”. These were “face dramatically longer commutes, relocate their lives and families, or risk being told to leave.

“No responsible employer should be placing workers in that position when alternatives exist.

“These closures will have a devastating impact on hundreds of dedicated public servants who have spent years delivering vital services for children, families and schools across the country.”

The DfE’s London, Sheffield, Coventry, Manchester, Darlington, Nottingham, Bristol and Cambridge offices will stay open.

A department spokesperson said: “We are working to operate better and more efficiently for the communities we serve – which means fewer, high-quality workplaces.

“The majority of colleagues have accepted our offers of arrangements that will support them to work from one of our remaining eight offices, and we are continuing to work with and support those who haven’t yet done so.”