Staff attendance targets at the MHCLG generally require civil servants in offices outside London to attend for 50 per cent of their working time over a three-month period, with an “ongoing departmental ambition to move toward 60 per cent”, a department spokesman said.

PCS said staff in the department’s finance directorate will strike for 13 days from September 24, while members in the resilience, emergencies and recovery directorate are scheduled to take eight days of strike action from October 1.

The union said the dispute centres on plans to close regional offices, along with targets for staff attendance in the workplace.

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “Our members are being asked to pay the price for decisions that make little sense for staff, communities or the effective delivery of public services.

“We need MHCLG to stop closing regional offices, rethink its rigid approach to attendance and get back around the table with PCS to find a fair solution.”

Union members first began action short of a strike in July 2025, followed by strike action in September 2025.

They renewed their industrial action mandate in a fresh ballot, which closed on April 15, 2026, and began taking action short of strike again in May 2026.

In November 2024, the department announced plans to vacate six offices, affecting hundreds of staff in Newcastle, Truro, Exeter, Sheffield, Birmingham and Warrington – with all but the latter having closed.

The union argues the Government is not saving money overall through this approach, and called for a “progressive and flexible office attendance policy, placing staff choice at its heart”.

They also urged the Government to consider proposals to prevent detriment or disciplinary action against staff, and to remove individual compliance monitoring in favour of an organisation-wide approach.

A union spokesman said: “Despite the union’s efforts to reach a settlement after previous industrial action, the department has failed to address the seriousness of our members’ concerns.

“It is continuing with planned office closures while also enforcing strict office attendance rules, with collective punishment based on the performance management of senior managers based on the attendance of their teams.

“These targets are also unrealistic – there are not enough desks to safely accommodate staff 60 per cent of the time, with the number of desks only set to reduce further with office moves.

“These desk reductions are being done to achieve cost savings for the employer, while forcing staff to face higher commuting costs through a dogmatic insistence on an unachievable target.”

The spokesman said despite verbal reassurances and positive talks, the inability to reach formal agreement on a resolution means “there is currently little confidence for members who are being hit with a triple impact”.

They continued: “The office closure plans fly in the face of the Labour Government’s stated commitment “to deliver good growth in every part of the United Kingdom,” with greater collaboration and ‘connectivity’ with local Government.

“We trust that fresh leadership in the department – with a new permanent secretary and HR director, as well as the return of trade unionist Angela Rayner, who is in agreement with the principles behind our demands – will approach this dispute differently.”

The demands of civil servants come after a report by Facts4EU showed public sector pay has risen by 6.6 per cent since Labour came to power, while private sector wage growth has barely kept pace with inflation.

The report noted that any state slimming usually comes with generous voluntary severance packages, while most senior officials rarely feel the rough hand of firm management when they make serious errors or lose money.

While some senior staff, such as past chief executives of the Post Office, have even been awarded bonuses, the Post Office has plunged into heavy losses, having to pay compensation to many employees it wrongly accused of fraud and sent to prison.

Lord Redwood, former secretary of state, described the circumstances as a “two-tier economy”, pointing to the public sector’s “inflation-linked pensions and no pressure to work smarter”.

The public sector generally finds more opportunity to work from home in general, with allegations some abuse the privilege by spending more time on their own matters and less on working the full hours for the state.

Beyond this, staff often rely on contractors to do the actual work, while the private sector expects more of its in-house staff and does not want to pay twice.

An MHCLG spokesman said: “We are engaging extensively with unions and staff to resolve this dispute and do not believe the current action is an appropriate response to the issues raised.

“All staff affected will be able to continue in their roles and we will continue to have an office in every English region as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

“Office attendance is an important element of how we work and the approach to this has not changed since 2024”.

Civil Servants in Angela Rayner’s Department Revolt Over Office Attendance Demands

A growing dispute between civil servants and Angela Rayner’s department has escalated into a programme of strike action, with workers challenging both plans to close regional offices and requirements to spend more of their working time in government workplaces.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) are preparing to walk out during September and October. The dispute has developed into a wider argument about how government departments should operate after years in which flexible and remote working became a much more established part of working life.

Rayner returned to the department as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in July 2026. The government department has responsibility for areas including housing, planning, local government, regional growth and communities.

The immediate dispute, however, is less about Rayner personally than about the workplace strategy being implemented across the department.

According to reports, staff outside London are generally expected to spend around half of their working time in the office over a three-month period, while the department has an ambition to move towards 60 per cent attendance. PCS argues that these requirements are creating additional pressure on employees, particularly as regional offices are simultaneously being closed or reduced.

The union has described the combination of office closures and attendance requirements as a central reason for the industrial action.

A dispute that has been building for months

The current confrontation did not emerge suddenly.

MHCLG announced plans in 2024 to vacate offices in six locations: Birmingham, Exeter, Newcastle, Sheffield, Truro and Warrington. The changes have affected hundreds of employees, with most of those offices having subsequently closed, according to reports on the dispute.

PCS has opposed the changes and has argued that reducing the department’s regional presence conflicts with wider government ambitions to strengthen economic activity and public services outside London.

The union also objects to the way attendance requirements are being implemented.

Its argument is that staff should retain greater flexibility over where they work, provided that public services and departmental responsibilities are properly delivered. PCS has called for a more flexible attendance policy and for staff choice to play a greater role in determining working arrangements.

The disagreement has already produced industrial action. According to the union, members began taking action short of a strike in July 2025, followed by strike action later that year. A fresh ballot completed in April 2026 renewed the mandate for industrial action, with further action short of a strike beginning in May.

Now the dispute is moving into another phase.

More strikes planned

PCS members in MHCLG’s finance directorate are scheduled to take 13 days of strike action beginning on September 24. Staff in the resilience, emergencies and recovery directorate are due to take eight days of action from October 1.

The action means the disagreement over working arrangements has become an operational issue for the department rather than simply an internal human-resources dispute.

The union says its members are being placed under pressure by two developments happening at the same time: fewer regional workplaces and expectations that employees should spend a substantial proportion of their working hours in offices.

One of the concerns raised by PCS is the availability of desks. The union has argued that office capacity could make the proposed attendance levels difficult to achieve in some locations, particularly as the department changes its property arrangements.

For employees, the issue is therefore not simply whether they prefer working from home or working in an office.

It also involves commuting distances, the location of remaining workplaces, office capacity and the practical consequences of closing sites where employees have previously been based.

Rayner’s own position on working from home

The dispute has attracted additional attention because of Rayner’s own comments about remote working.

In August, she said she did not regard working from home as the fundamental explanation for low productivity in the public sector.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Rayner rejected the idea that managers necessarily need to see employees physically sitting in an office to know they are working. She also pointed to her own experience of not being office-based for many years.

Those comments provide an interesting backdrop to the current industrial dispute.

They do not mean that Rayner has rejected office attendance requirements. Rather, they indicate that she has publicly questioned the idea that productivity can simply be measured by physical presence.

That distinction matters because the department’s current workplace policy is not based entirely on working from home. The reported approach involves a defined level of office attendance while retaining an element of flexibility.

The disagreement is therefore about where the appropriate balance should lie.

The wider civil service debate

The conflict at MHCLG reflects a broader debate across Whitehall.

Government departments have spent years adjusting to changes in working practices introduced during and after the Covid pandemic. Remote working became much more common, while ministers and senior officials have subsequently sought to increase the amount of time employees spend in government offices.

Supporters of greater office attendance have generally argued that physical workplaces can help collaboration, training, management and organisational culture.

Trade unions, meanwhile, have argued that flexible working can allow public bodies to recruit from a wider geographical area and reduce commuting pressures.

The MHCLG dispute brings those arguments together with another government objective: maintaining a strong presence outside London.

PCS has argued that closing regional offices while simultaneously requiring employees to attend workplaces more frequently creates a contradiction. If staff have to commute more often, but their nearest established office disappears, the practical burden can increase even where the overall number of offices is being rationalised.

The government has responded that it will continue to maintain offices across the regions.

In an earlier statement, MHCLG said its approach to office attendance was consistent with arrangements across the wider civil service and had not changed since early 2024. The department also said it had continued engaging with unions and staff and did not believe strike action was an appropriate response.

What happens next?

The coming weeks will test whether the two sides can find common ground.

For PCS, the key demands include reconsidering regional office closures and changing what it regards as an overly rigid approach to attendance.

For MHCLG, the challenge is to maintain effective public services while managing its estate, staffing arrangements and expectations about workplace presence.

The dispute also puts attention on the relationship between ministers and civil servants.

PCS has previously called for direct ministerial involvement, arguing that negotiations had not produced a formal settlement. The union has said it wants senior political leadership to engage with the concerns of its members.

For Rayner, the situation presents a particularly complicated balancing act.

Her department is responsible for policies intended to address housing supply, local government and regional economic development, while its own employees are arguing that workplace decisions could make it harder to maintain a genuinely regional civil service.

At the heart of the disagreement is a relatively simple question with no simple answer: how much physical presence is necessary for an effective modern government department?

The answer involves more than counting the number of days employees spend behind office desks. It touches on recruitment, commuting, regional economic activity, management, collaboration, public spending and the ability of government departments to operate beyond London.

The strike action planned for September and October is therefore unlikely to settle the debate by itself.

Instead, it may become another stage in a much larger argument over what the modern civil service should look like.

As flexible working becomes an established feature of employment, ministers and unions are still negotiating where the boundary between home and office should sit. At MHCLG, that argument has now moved beyond policy discussions and into industrial action.

For the department, the immediate priority will be keeping essential work moving while attempting to resolve the dispute.

For the unions, the focus will remain on attendance targets, office closures and the practical consequences for employees.

And for Rayner, the coming negotiations will provide a test of how her department balances operational demands with the flexible working principles she has publicly acknowledged.