The Liberal Democrat administration’s four-day working week trial at South Cambridgeshire District Council has yet again provoked chaotic mayhem – this time, after further floundering over financial figures.
The Lib Dems have been trialling four-days’ work for five-days’ pay for council officers since January 2023 – and for waste crews since September 2023.
In an Employment and Staffing Committee meeting in November 2023, a paper on the four-day week stated that projected savings by replacing agency staff with permanent staff under the trial amounted to £776,000 since January 2023.
However, new Employment and Staffing papers released today states that the actual saving on agency staff is only £434,000 since September 2022 – before the trial even began.
Crucially, the papers also show some of the additional costs of undertaking the four-day week trial, including £207,000 for additional bin collection rounds and two more bin lorries.
Consequently, the net saving of the four-day week is only £316,000 – well below the £434,000 cited in the administration’s press release, and miles off the original projected £776,000 saving. And we believe this net figure requires further scrutiny still.
This just highlights how impossible it has been to gain assurance from the administration on the financial costs of their four-day week trial. It would be easier to nail jelly to a wall.
Cllr Heather Williams, Leader of the Conservative Opposition at South Cambs, said:
“This is yet another episode in the saga of the Lib Dems’ four-day week at South Cambs.
“The way in which the press release and the report show different figures is another sign of how difficult it is to get the Lib Dems to settle on a figure. We can’t go on like this. We need straight answers to questions and we need clear comparisons. Until we have that, I cannot trust the information that I am being provided with. This is why we worked so hard to get the data submitted to central government released to the public – and this is why we will continue to scrutinise all information. But it is sad when we have to act in this way.
“And most of all, complete contempt for residents, in that 80% of councillors are expected to just sit back, allow this to happen, without being permitted to represent their residents at all because the papers show that the Lib Dems will carry on in one way or another and still deny us a vote for the foreseeable future.
“I do not see how the Liberal Democrats can still contain the word ‘democrat’ in their party name when this is the way they are conducting business at South Cambs. This isn’t democracy. This isn’t down to the welfare of residents. It is a social experiment being paid for by the taxpayer.
“Trying to actually get straight answers to questions has been nearly impossible throughout. I’m seriously concerned that we are not being provided with the necessary information to hold this administration to account.
“The damage is being done both reputationally and financially to this council will be so severe that there will be no recovery.”
In 2020, there was found to be a lack of trust in the council’s planning department from the Local Government Association and Planning Advisory Service. It’s such a shame that this would now be said by so many residents about the council as a whole – but understandable given the Lib Dems’ elusive figures.
If they overestimated the savings, how do we not know they are underestimating the costs?
