Four-day week trial ordered to end over ‘value for taxpayer money’

South Cambridgeshire District Council wanted to continue its trial until next April (Picture: Google)

A minister has told a council to end its four-day week trial ‘immediately’ over concerns about ‘taxpayer value for money’.

South Cambridgeshire District Council recently voted to extend its shorter working week experiment until next April, but local government minister Lee Rowley has said to scrap it.

He wrote a letter to council leader Bridget Smith on Friday saying ‘all councils are expected to ensure that finite and valuable taxpayers’ money is used in a way which demonstrates value for money’.

Mr Rowley argued that ‘paying employees for an extra day of work that is not carried out is unlikely to demonstrate’ this expectation.

He wrote: ‘I strongly believe in the ability of councils to innovate and find new ways to discharge their responsibilities – yet removing up to 20% of the capacity to do those activities is not something which should be acceptable for a council seeking to demonstrate value for money for its taxpayers and residents.

‘Whilst some private sector organisations may choose to experiment with their own capital and capacity regarding “four-day working weeks”, local government should not do the same.

‘I look forward to your confirmation that South Cambridgeshire will be returning to established norms around local government workforce capacity in the coming weeks ahead.’

Lee Rowley is the minister for local government and building safety (Picture: Chris McAndrew/UK Parliament)

Implementing a four-day week could even amount to breaching the council’s legal duties under the Local Government Act, Mr Rowley said.

He added that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will ‘shortly be issuing clear guidance’ on the matter.

But Ms Smith defended the decision to cut a day from employees’ work week without changing their salaries in her response on Saturday.

She said she was ‘surprised’ to receive the letter and asked for ‘a meeting with ministers to discuss this matter’.

She argued the first three months of the trial had ‘already seen strong independently assessed evidence which showed that performance was maintained, and in some cases improved’.

Bridget Smith is the Liberal Democrat leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council (Picture: District Council’s network)

The Liberal Democrat councillor wrote: ‘At the start of our trial we were carrying a £2 million annual agency bill.

‘During the first three months of the trial, we filled four permanent posts that had previously been impossible to fill.

‘This has reduced our annual bill by £300,000.’

‘As time goes on it is becoming increasingly clear that recruitment has been positively affected, both in terms of the quality and number of applicants and the consequent success in filling vacant posts.’

Multiple companies around the world have been looking at using four-day weeks, with supporters believing the 9am to 5pm, five-day working week is outdated and no longer fit for purpose.

The director of the 4-Day Week campaign group, Joe Ryle, said: ‘This move by the Government flies in the face of all the evidence, which shows the four-day week has been a huge success at the council.

‘The four-day week with no loss of pay is already being rolled out across the private sector so it’s only fair the public sector is included too.

‘There is no good reason to end this trial, which is already bringing many benefits to council workers, local residents and saving the council money.’

A recent UK trial saw 61 companies reduce their working hours for all staff by 20% for six months in the world’s largest experiment of its kind.

Employees were surveyed before and after the trial with 71% reporting lower levels of burnout, 39% saying they were less stressed, 40% sleeping better and 54% saying it was easier to balance work and home responsibilities.

Workplaces benefited too with sick days dropping by two-thirds and staff 57% more likely to stay with the company. Productivity also remained stable in most cases, and companies’ revenue rose by 1.4% on average.

Some 92% of businesses which participated, which included chip shops, financial services firms, online retailers and animation studios, extended the trial or made the four-day week permanent.

South Cambridgeshire District Council was the first local authority to try out the four-day week between January and March this year.

They believe the scheme helps ‘attract and keep talented colleagues’ who can deliver ‘100% of their work in 80% of their contracted hours for 100% of their pay’.

The council’s data were analysed independently by the University of Cambridge’s Bennett Institute for Public Policy.

It concluded that nine of the 16 areas monitored showed ‘substantial improvement’ when the trial period was compared with the same months last year.

The other seven areas either ‘stayed the same or saw a slight decline’ but no performance ‘fell to a concerning level during the trial’.

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A local government minister said a four-day week ‘should not be acceptable for a council seeking to demonstrate value for money for its taxpayers and residents’.