Prime minister Boris Johnson will next week encourage people to go back to their workplaces as part of a wider government campaign, the Telegraph reports.
The campaign will be launched in tandem with the return of most schools in England and Wales, making it more practical for parents to return to workplaces.
Employers whose staff have been working from home since March will be asked to reassure people that it is safe to return to the workplace, while a new online tool will be introduced to help commuters avoided crowded buses and trains.
Confederation of British Industry director general Dame Carolyn Fairbairn warned on Thursday that “offices are dying” and city centres risked becoming “ghost towns” if the government did not do more to encourage employees back to workplaces, with many businesses based in central areas relying on passing trade from workers and commuters.
A number of Conservative MPs have raised similar concerns and pushed the government to give a clear and consistent message that returning to work will not compromise people’s safety.
Speaking to Times Radio, health secretary Matt Hancock said that getting staff back into workplaces was a “matter for employers” and his concern was more around how employees were performing.
He said: “What I care about is how effectively people work. Obviously, people should come back to the office if that is what they need to do their job, obviously employers need to make sure the offices are Covid-secure.
"Some of them have been working from home, some come in sometimes, some are in full-time - and what matters to me is that they deliver and, frankly, they've been delivering at an unbelievable rate.”
Transport secretary Grant Shapps said that the DfT was encouraging people to return to workplaces where it was safe to do so but warned that it was a “gradual process” getting people back.
Shapps added: “I suspect we'll see more flexible working than we've seen in the past and it will be for employers and employees to work out the right balance in their particular cases.”
Meanwhile, foreign secretary Dominic Raab has praised Japanese leader Shinzo Abe, who confirmed on Friday morning that he will be standing down due to ill-health.
Raab said that Japan’s longest serving prime minister had contributed to a “strengthened UK-Japanese friendship” and extended his best wishes.
The foreign secretary said: “I was sorry to learn that Shinzo Abe is stepping down as prime minister, and I pay tribute to the great things he has achieved as Japan's longest serving leader.
“He leaves a strengthened UK-Japanese friendship, which we look forward to continuing in the years ahead. I wish him well for the future.”
Elsewhere, with proposals for a local government overhaul due to be unveiled by Westminster in autumn, a report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers argues that merging district and county councils into single unitary authorities in mid-sized county areas could save £126 million over five years and £2.94 billion nationally.
The report’s projection would involve scrapping 213 smaller councils in England and replacing them with 25 new local unitary authorities.
The report commissioned by County Councils Network chair David Williams says that having one local authority in each area would give local communities a unified democratic voice and reduce complexity.
Councillor Williams said in the wake of the report that there was a "compelling" financial case for creating more unitary authorities.
In an interview with the BBC, Williams highlighted that in Hertfordshire 11 local authorities exist, equating to “11 chief executives, 526 councillors, ten planning teams”.
Williams said: “There is an awful lot of complexity, and there is a lot of cost."
The government plans to be announced in autumn could well include a move to axe district and county councils in England in favour of larger authorities which oversee all services in their region. Indeed, some county councils are already making plans to form a single unitary authority in lieu of existing county and district councils in their local areas.
However, the County Councils Network warned against establishing more than one unitary authority in one county, since it could see social services and adult social care departments divided, as well as reducing the projected savings in the report by two thirds.
The warning came amid speculation that the government’s plans could include a population cap of 600,000 in one unitary authority, which could pave the way for multiple unitary bodies in different counties.
The network said that division of historic counties could have a knock-on effect for local taxpayers by giving them a “worse deal”.
Some council leaders are entirely opposed to the idea of axing district councils. Stevenage Council’s Labour leader, Sharon Taylor, argued that the county of Hertfordshire was too vast to be represented by a single authority and that “centralising local services seems entirely wrong”.
She added: "That real democratic voice that people have at local level is really important to them.”
Photo by Saulo Mohana on Unsplash
