Civil servants spend £500,000 of taxpayer cash on mindfulness apps

Civil servants spend £500,000 of taxpayer cash on mindfulness apps which have celebrities including Idris Elba and Kate Winslet reading bedtime stories to soothe users to sleep

• Civil servants have spent £490,000 of taxpayer cash on mindfulness apps
• In the last two years, six departments have spent the money on services for staff
• They include bedtime stories read by celebrities and guided mediation sessions 

Civil servants have spent £500,000 of taxpayer cash on mindfulness apps which have celebrities including Idris Elba and Kate Winslet reading bedtime stories to soothe users to sleep.

The apps, which can cost around £10-a-month, offer guided meditations including sessions called ‘creating a safe space’ and ‘soothing anxiety at bedtime’, with stories read by celebrities.

The spending during a cost-of-living crisis has been slammed by critics, calling on Government departments to reflect on their spending decisions.

Civil servants have spent £500,000 of taxpayer cash on mindfulness apps which have celebrities including Idris Elba and Kate Winslet (pictured) reading bedtime stories to soothe users to sleep

In the last two years, six Government departments have spent £490,000 on the wellness services, Government contracts reported by The Telegraph reveal.

The Department for Education (DFe), Department for Digital, Culture, Media (DCMS) and Sport and Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) were all subscribing to Headspace, an app founded by a former Buddhist monk from Bristol.

The app, which is subscribed to by more than two million people, offers ‘sleep casts’ to help listeners doze off, including sessions titled ‘vineyard sunset’ and ‘midnight laundrette’. 

DEFRA spent £266,100 on the resource for staff in the last two years, the newspaper reported.  

Calm, a Silicon-Valley founded app with more than four million users, cost the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) £45,124.

Its offering includes stories read by Idris Elba, including the title ‘Kingdom of the Sky’ and Kate Winslet reading children’s bedtime story ‘Thomas and the North Star’.  

Dame Mary Berry also features on the app reading a story about a tea party.

Chris Advansun, head of sleep stories at the company, previously said that the narrated tales give adults permission ‘to return to what was one of the most comforting and soothing experiences they’d had as children’.

The Cabinet Office was also buying meditative services for its staff through Unmind, paying £102,456 for guided sessions and a personal journal for users to track their ‘thoughts and feelings’, the newspaper reported.

Calm, a Silicon-Valley founded app with more than four million users, includes stories read by Idris Elba (pictured), including the title ‘Kingdom of the Sky’

‘It will come as no relief to working households that civil servants are in a Zen state while precious resources are being wasted,’ John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance told The Telegraph.

He added that civil servants should reflect on whether the spending is an ‘appropriate use of funds’.

David Jones, Conservative MP for Clwyd West told the newspaper that Whitehall’s duty of care ‘doesn’t extend to spending £500,000 of taxpayer money on what amounts to little more than bedtime stories for adults.’

A Government spokesperson told The Telegraph: ‘We are committed to delivering the best value for money, cutting waste and inefficiency and ensuring every pound of taxpayers’ money is spent in the best possible way.

‘As a responsible employer, we continue to improve our approach to health and wellbeing in order to help employees perform at their best.’

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