Councillors may be forced to work from libraries and internet cafes as Conwy council’s new offices in Colwyn Bay will not include desks for all its workers.

The Pioneer have been told the new £31 million offices which is due to house 750 council employees, to be completed in October, will work with a six desks to 10 staff ratio meaning council staff will operate under a “hot desking” scheme.

UNISON Cymru Wales organiser, Geoff Edkins, said he was sceptical about this kind of “hot desking” approach and was concerned staff would be forced to work from libraries and internet cafes as a result.

Mr Edkins said: “Our members are sceptical about the benefits of hot-desk working. There are concerns there may not be enough desks for members of staff or that available desks may be hard to find.

“Hot-desking in other local authorities has resulted in council staff being forced to work from internet cafes and libraries, which is far from satisfactory.

“We question the efficiency of hot-desking – how much time will be wasted as members of staff are allowed up to half an hour to set up their workstations?

“My gut reaction is the council is trying to force staff to work from home.

“Requiring everyone to hot-desk will be a major cultural change and people need time to adjust.

“We hope the council has ensured the correct safeguards will be in place to protect confidential information such as social services’ child protection files.”

Despite these concerns Conwy County Borough Council (CCBC) county valuer and asset manager Bleddyn Evans said they had undertaken detailed analysis and were happy with the situation.

He said: “The Coed Pella offices will operate on an average 6 desk to 10 staff ratio. Detailed analysis undertaken during early stages of the project identified an appropriate ratio for Coed Pella, which took into account that not all staff would be at their desks at the same time, as they would be in meetings, on site, on leave, working elsewhere, working at home, or ill.

“Only in limited circumstances would people have their own desks, which would be for specialist functions. The offices will be an agile working environment, and the new building will complement other modernisation initiatives such as improved mobile IT equipment and improved HR policies which mean that there will be less onous on staff being desk based”.

Conwy county councillor Chris Hughes, from the Glyn Ward, said CCBC had been using the “hot desking” system for quite some time now and the new six desks to 10 staff in the new building would be nothing new.

Cllr Hughes said not everyone has an office and on any given day a lot of people would be out and about at meetings or other engagements.

He added: “We move around the county a lot for meetings or work from home or work from home. But when you do go to an office you find a work station, and everything’s held on a drive so you just need to go to a computer go to your drive and start working.

“Equally a lot of people work from home so they can access their drives from there too.

“It’s all fine, it means we don’t need as much space to house all 500-600 people using the office. It’s industry standard these days.”