A £7.4 million government scheme designed to improve public sector efficiency has come under fire.

The working practice programme known as Lean, being piloted at an HM Revenue and Customs office in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is said to improve worker efficiency by assigning the optimum positions for keyboards, mice, telephones and stationery.

Black tape has been placed on desks at the Longbenton complex to mark the optimal positions for objects from monitors to staplers, while staff have been forced to clear clutter.

The system was originally pioneered by the car manufacturer Toyota.

“Part of Lean processing is to clear the workplace and only keep essential items to hand,” a spokesperson for HM Revenue and Customs said. “This is in line with the workstation ergonomics training that all of our staff receive.”

But officials from the Public and Commercial Services union insist the scheme is “trying to turn people into robots” and note that some desks at Longbenton are ‘hot-desks’ used two employees on different shifts - meaning the black tape is defunct.

“It is absurd that millions of pounds of public money is being spent on this when staff are quite capable of deciding how their desks should be organised,” said one employee involved in the Lean pilot.

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