The council implemented a four-day work week to help with hiring and keeping staff, as well as to cut down on expenses
A controversial four-day working week at a district council has been made permanent following a trial in a UK-first. South Cambridgeshire District Council staff have been doing 100% of their work in 80% of their hours since January 2023.
Last night (July 17), 26 councillors voted in favour of making the working pattern permanent, with nine opposing. The district council is believed to be the first council in the UK to introduce a four-day week. Lib Dem leader of the council Cllr Bridget Smith said the move heralded a “very bright future” for the council and represented “smarter” working for the 21st century.
However, the Conservative opposition argued it was a “slap in the face” for taxpayers to pay for council staff to have an extra day off every week. The four-day week trial was introduced for desk-based staff at the district council in 2023. Under the trial, staff receive full pay for working 80% of their hours, but are expected to complete all of their work in that time.
The council introduced the four-day week to aid staff recruitment and retention and reduce the spending on agency staff. Council services have continued to operate for at least five days a week.
A report published ahead of the debate said 21 of the authority’s service areas had improved or stayed the same since the four-day week trial began. But ahead of the meeting, the Conservative opposition questioned the report’s independence, saying it was “co-authored by a 4-day week activist”.
The report said nine areas saw a “statistically significant improvement”, including in the percentage of calls answered at the contact centre, the percentage of complaints responded to within timescales, and the percentage of emergency housing repairs completed in 24 hours.
The council said if performance variations caused by the Covid pandemic were discounted, every service monitored had improved or stayed the same. The authority also said there has been an overall annual net saving of £399,263, which it said was mainly due to filling vacancies permanently, rather than paying for agency workers.
However, some areas showed a “statistically significant decline,” including the percentage of housing rent collected, the average days taken to re-let all housing stock, and the percentage of tenant satisfaction with responsive repairs. Cllr Smith told councillors at a full council meeting on Thursday (July 17) that the four-day working week worked and had “exceeded” expectations.
She said: “This is not about working less; it is about working smarter. We are living in the 21st century, and this is the way of working for organisations like us: smarter working, not longer working, and that delivers improvements. It is not perfect; where we fall short of residents’ expectations, we will work harder to improve, and now we can do that.”
However, Conservative Cllr Dr Shrobona Bhattacharya said she had received more than 300 emails from people worried about the four-day week. She argued it was an “unfair system,” noting that no one was stopping people from working a four-day week but arguing they should receive four days’ pay for doing so.
Conservative opposition leader Cllr Heather Williams told the meeting that key performance indicators did not cover everything the council does. She pointed out that the report stated that the analysis of services could not prove that the four-day week directly caused the identified results, as other changes had been made.
She said: “We have a choice. We can show residents that we support them. It’s a slap in the face when people are taking on increased council tax while their money is spent to give people a day off every week.
“It’s not right, it’s not fair, and there is no reliable proof that it works. If this goes ahead, trust between the council and residents could be broken for good. This has got to stop.”