Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office and Bob Kerslake, Head of the Civil Service tell Londoners about Operation StepChange.
Civil servants are doing their bit to make sure that London is still ‘open for business’ during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the largest sporting events in the world. London 2012 will be a great moment for the country and civil servants across Whitehall are determined to do everything they can to support them.
With many events being held in London and up to 800,000 ticket holders making an extra three million trips in London on the busiest days, the pressures on public transport will be huge. Civil servants have a key role to play in making sure that the business of Government can get done and to reduce the impact on the transport network.
To make sure staff are ready for London 2012 departments from across government will be taking part in Operation StepChange from Monday 6 February to Friday 10 February in order to test travel and business continuity plans. This will include working from home or an office outside London, changing routes into work to avoid travel hotspots, avoiding busy periods and walking or cycling to the office.
Francis Maude, said:
Across Whitehall, government departments are making plans to positively change 50% of commuting, business travel, deliveries and collections during the Games and, to make sure our plans are fit for purpose, we are running a test week. This is about different ways of travelling and working, from changing routes in to avoid hotspots, to walking or cycling to work instead of taking public transport, to using office space outside London.
The lessons learned on different working practices and using IT more smartly will help us become a more flexible and effective workforce.
Last week Francis Maude and Head of the Civil Service, Sir Bob Kerslake spoke to the London Evening Standard about the plans. They believe that Operation StepChange will help to transform the way the Civil Service works, making it more efficient by making effective use of available resources and technology.
Sir Bob said:
“This is a real chance to for people to try something different and we’ll learn from it. The vision is to get a more collaborative way of working, a more corporate way of working in the Civil Service.”
For the full story in the Evening Standard visit -http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/