Tens of thousands of Whitehall civil servants will be given the option to work from home weeks over the summer as part of plans to cope with increased congestion during the Olympic Games, it has been reported.
The Times said civil servants have been offered a variety of ways to work during the seven week period including changing their travel plans or working in offices closer to where they live.
But as these other options will be impractical for the majority of staff, most are are likely to opt to work from home.
A spokesman for the Business Services Association told the paper that that was too long a time to have the government machine "working intermittently".
“We would encourage ministers and Whitehall to apply themselves as energetically as the private sector is to driving the economy forward, Olympic Games or no Olympic Games," they said.
However the Public and Commercial Services Union, which representes civil servants, said with the capital expected to be busy during the Games, it was reasonable to put contingency plans in place to ensure Whitehall kept running.
"It's hard to see what this has to do with so called business 'leaders', it's a flexible working arrangement for civil servants that as far as we can see is a sensible measure," a spokesperson told The Huffington Post UK.
Concerns that this would mean productivity would fall as civil servants slacked off in order to watch the Games from the comfort of their homes were rejected by a Whitehall official who told the Daily Telegraph: "They are still being paid to work and this will be monitored."
The option to work from home has reportedly not been extended to staff working for the Home Office, Foreign Office of Department for Communities and Local Government.
However all is not lost for staff from those departments wanting to catch some of the Olympic action, as the beach volleyball tournament will take place in Horse Guards Parade next door to the Foreign Office.