Across the country this morning, office workers returning to work will be winding their office clocks forward to adjust to daylight saving.

Not so at the Environment Ministry, where the Government's drive for efficiency in the public service has claimed another casualty - clocks. Bizarrely, senior managers ordered the walls of its Wellington headquarters be stripped of timekeepers - to stop staff turning up late to departmental meetings.

A source said the decision was made because none of the dozens of clocks on the seven floors of Environment House were synchronised. This meant some of the around 300 staff were showing up to briefings two or three minutes late. So, at a senior-level meeting in the past fortnight, the decision was taken to clear the offices of more than 50 clocks, rather than reset them.

The withdrawal has left employees bewildered. "It's unbelievable, a bit like being back at school," one said.

"It's rude to keep looking at your watch when people are talking or take out your phone. So, you look up at meetings to see how long is left to go, and all that's left is a nail in the wall."

A spokesman for the ministry stressed not every clock was removed. The decision was taken "rather light-heartedly", he said. "We've got clocks on computers and clocks on phones, so it's not like we are a clock-free zone. It's just that the rather cheap clocks around the place weren't keeping good time. Some have gone and some have not, it's not a blanket removal."

The redundant clocks may now be offered for sale to staff, he said.

The Environment Ministry was one of the first departments to suffer under the Government's drive for "Better Public Services". Restructuring plans announced in 2009 proposed cutting more than 80 jobs.