Hybrid working must be key to Government plans for regeneration and growth, says new report

• Major new research finds that areas with more remote working are likely to see higher levels of spending.
  
  
• The research finds that 65% of the UK’s working population were forced to change their place of work as a result of the pandemic, and 79% want to continue some form of remote working in future.
  
  
• The report calls on the Government to back policy change that supports growth of remote working and local desk space, to drive forward regeneration.

Post Pandemic Places, a major new report from cross-party think tank Demos, commissioned by Legal & General, has found that huge increases in home working, coupled with a desire for continued flexibility, could support significant increases in local spending. On the back of the findings, Demos and Legal & General are calling on the government to incentivise the establishment of more local offices and hybrid-working initiatives.

According to the new research, 65% of the working population were forced to change their place of work during 2020 as a result of the pandemic. Of these, 79% want to continue to have some form of remote working in future. However, the findings - taken from a large, nationally-representative poll of 20,000 adults - indicate that a desire to work remotely is not necessarily the same as wanting to work from home all of the time.

Relatively high levels of support were recorded for ‘local desk space’. This was particularly stark among younger people, with one fifth of those in their twenties rating it their top priority for employment premises in their locality. When asked how people were intending to spend their money once the restrictions were over, the research found that 36% of people plan to spend more money locally than they did before the pandemic. Among people required to work from home, this rose to 47%.

Building on this trend, the report suggests there is an opportunity for government and business to support more hybrid working and flexible local desk space, to give people the flexibility they want and also make progress on the 'levelling up' agenda, by spreading spending power across a wider geographic area.

Historically, investment in landmark regional offices has been shown to drive major regeneration and economic growth; supporting job creation, increases in daytime footfall and driving spending towards local high streets. This has been demonstrated through HMRC’s Government Hubs programme, which has seen the establishment of eleven new regional offices across the UK. In Cardiff, for example, the ‘Central Square’ Hub – forward funded by Legal & General – formed a pivotal role in the city centre’s transformation, supporting an estimated increase in economic wealth of £1.1bn over 10 years. Demos and Legal & General are, therefore, encouraging government to continue to lead the way in providing similar local office space for their workers, particularly in areas with lower economic activity.

As a result of its findings, Demos is calling on the Government to promote remote working as a regeneration tool. An example would be introducing employee tax incentives, such as ‘remote-working vouchers’, similar in design to the current childcare voucher scheme.

Demos is also calling for:

• The Government to urgently consult on fulfilling its stated intention of making all jobs flexible by default, with location-flexibility included
• The conversion of some local civic buildings to remote working spaces, which could be used by any civil servant in order to help spread spending power out across the country.