A recent article by journalist Robert Crampton in The Times has sparked heated debate about public employees working remotely from idyllic locations. The piece, published on December 31 and titled “Working for a Devon council from Ibiza – How were the Zoom calls?”, claims that a municipal worker from West Devon Council teleworked from Ibiza for nearly four years, from March 2020 to February 2024.
Now, almost 15 days after this article, the West Devon City Council assures that does not have any employees who have been working for years remotely from Ibiza.
However, Crampton claims that the data he has was obtained by accessing a register of public applications for teleworking. He adds that UK councils approved some 730 applications to “work from the beach” in 2023.
The Times article is a direct criticism of public sector employeeswhich states that when dealing with workers, politicians’ negotiations “do not revolve around salaries, pensions, or policies. Instead, they revolve around my friend trying to convince many of his colleagues to go to work and do the job they are paid to do. Many are on sick leave, without any evidence or sign of actual disabling illness. Some are self-diagnosing ‘mental health issues,'” writes Robert Crampton.
It is in this context that he recounts the case of that municipal employee who has allegedly spent some four years teleworking from the island.
The journalist writes: “Let me take a guess at the problems facing West Devon Council: lack of affordable housing; outrageous rural public transport services; an over-reliance on seasonal, low-skilled jobs; pockets of poverty suffering high levels of crime and anti-social behavior combined with poor health and educational outcomes; isolated elderly people; polluted waterways; fed-up farmers. It is not immediately obvious how any of these problems can be better tackled from Ibiza than from Tavistock.”
Teleworking from halfway around the world
Many of the destinations from which staff have been allowed to work (such as Barbados and Australia) have very different time zones to the UK, which has led to questions among readers as to whether staff can do their jobs properly and respond promptly to e-mails and phone calls pertaining to their position.
As reported by the Daily Mail, “Derby City Council approved an employee to work from France for 74 days and from New Zealand for 42 days, while Sandwell Council in Birmingham allowed an employee to work from Dubai for almost three weeks. Wales Council granted permission for someone to work from Barbados in 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24, although it did not disclose for how long in each year. Central Bedfordshire Council approved more than 150 applications in the last two years.”
All this information being revealed by the British media is provoking indignation in a large part of the population that, in addition to paying with their taxes the salaries of these public employees who telework from typical vacation places, in April they are going to be increased the municipal tax burden by 5%.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.