Civil service head warns PM against forcing Whitehall workers back to office

Exclusive: Simon Case and at least four permanent secretaries raise alarm over Johnson government's tactics

The UK's top civil servant has privately warned Boris Johnson against forcing government workers back to the office amid growing anger in Whitehall over scare tactics", the Guardian has learned.

Alongside Simon Case, at least four permanent secretaries - the most senior civil servants in their department - are also understood to have raised alarm over government rhetoric designed to reverse the shift to working-from-home arrangements during the Covid pandemic.