Concern that Scottish Borders Council headquarters is “completely empty”

Concerns were raised over the amount of Scottish Borders Council staff now working from home since Covid.

Leaderdale and Melrose ward councillor David Parker raised concern at the lack of staff in the HQ at Newtown St. Boswells at a meeting of the council’s Executive Committee on Tuesday, April 18.

He said it was a question of “spot the staff” as he called for a proposed £480,000 upgrade of council headquarters to be deferred.

Numerous works are proposed on ground and first floor, in addition to the relocation of the training suite into the main building and the enhancement of the council chamber.

Councillor David Parker says the council headquarters is "completely empty".

Mr Parker said: “At 9.30 this morning I took a walk through the council HQ building and I photographed the number of staff in the building and it was a fascinating journey of ‘spot the member of staff’. There are floors in this building where there are lots of desks but no people at them. The building is completely empty.

“I think there is no strategy for getting staff back into the building. Although I support home working I don’t support it all the time and I think most office-based staff should be in the building some days of the week and we need to address this.

“I’m not prepared to support the £480,000 spend today without a report back on the HQ building and a report on home working. Members of the public are telling me that SBC is suffering from a Covid malaise and as much as I want to defend the council and say ‘that’s not true’ I have to say that I am beginning to be concerned about that.”

David Robertson, the chief executive of SBC, said: “The vast majority of the operations of the council do not take place from this building, they take place in the community, in schools and social work centres, in contact centres.

“It is true that the occupation of the headquarters building post-Covid has not seen the return to the numbers of people we had occupying the building before Covid.

“The days of people travelling 50 miles from Eyemouth to sit in this building and provide the same service that they can access and provide at home are all gone and we have a duty around our carbon footprint.”

Mid-Berwickshire’s Councillor Mark Rowley added: “I worry when conversations like this start with declarations of what councillors think they want their employees to do and I think the right thing is to ask our colleagues what do they want.”

Members agreed to defer a decision on the HQ spend until a report is brought back to members.