Fury at taxpayer-paid workers working from Spain, France and Italy | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Staff at quangos have been granted permission to work from overseas greater than 2000 occasions since 2019. These taxpayer-funded organisations have allowed staff to fulfil their duties abroad on 2,145 events.

The figures confirmed a whole bunch of workers have labored from common vacation locations together with Spain, France and Italy. The Taxpayers’ Alliance contacted 169 of the arms’ size our bodies beneath the Freedom of Information Act and 55 confirmed granting workers permission to work from overseas.

According to the marketing campaign group’s analysis, since 2019 permission has been granted on 361 events by the Office for National Statistics, 292 by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, 243 by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, 225 by UK Sport and 146 by the Food Standards Agency.

Of these, almost half (873) had been granted for “personal reasons”. Staff had been allowed to work from Spain on 131 events, France on 114, Italy on 89, Germany on 58 and Switzerland on 55.

Joanna Marchong, investigations marketing campaign supervisor on the TaxPayers’ Alliance, stated: “Taxpayers are growing ever more curious about what on earth the 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 of London, they’re often not based in the UK at all.”

Reform UK MP Lee Anderson stated: “This report from the TaxPayers’ Alliance confirms what we’ve known all along: this Government has utter contempt for hardworking taxpayers – expecting us to bankroll the entitled and lazy as they ‘work’ beachside. Britons have had enough of the abuse.

“Reform will put an end to this nonsense. We’ll get people back to work, treat taxpayers’ money with the same care and discipline we would our own, and bring real transparency back to government.”

A Government spokesperson stated: “We expect civil servants to spend the majority of time working from the office, and working outside of the UK must only be approved for 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.”