South Cambridgeshire District Council has been trialling a four-day week since January 2023 for desk-based staff.
The Liberal Democrat administration has consistently sung the praises of its four days’ work for five days’ pay experiment – but the truth is that the four-day week hasn’t been so rosy on the inside.
In a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the administration claimed the purpose of the four-day week was to improve council performance, improve staff health, wellbeing, recruitment and retention, and to save money on agency staff.
In terms of council performance, the data simply does not stack up. The report on the four-day week trial approved by Cabinet stated seven out of 16 monitored areas have stagnated or declined since the beginning of the four-day week.
Unsurprisingly, staff have experienced damaging stress by trying to fit five days’ worth of work into four.
A health and wellbeing survey considered in Employment & Staffing committee showed 35% of staff felt more stressed – 59% of whom said this stress negatively impacted them.
This may be because they’re overworked. The survey reported that almost 100 staff were still working more than four days a week – with 53% working 2-3 extra hours a week and 14% working 6+ extra hours a week.
The four-day week hasn’t attracted a huge amount of staff, either. The report presented to Cabinet showed only 9 out of 23 new starters said the four-day week attracted them to apply for the role.
But the biggest failure has been the overpromised, under-delivered savings on agency staff.
This has caused carnage and confusion. The Lib Dem administration initially claimed they hoped to save up to £1 million on agency staff from the trial. The savings reported in June were £333,000. This had risen to £776,000 by the end of 2023.
And yet, the report approved by the Lib Dem Cabinet stated £434,000 of actual savings on agency staff – miles off the original projections.
Furthermore, costs associated with the four-day week must be deducted from this figure – leaving us with a £316,000 net saving.
This must then be split between South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City Council, leaving South Cambs with around a £200,000 saving – less than a third of the savings predicted at the end of 2023.
Cllr Heather Williams, Leader of the Conservative Opposition at South Cambs, said:
“The Lib Dems’ four-day week trial in South Cambs has been chaotic from the start. It has felt impossible to nail down crucial figures. It has so hard as a councillor to get answers to residents’ questions.
“The Lib Dems have repeatedly moved the goalposts to try and force the four-day week to work. But it hasn’t – and it can’t. They should just put their hands up and admit that it cannot be done.
“It is time for residents to get the service they are paying for: five days’ work, for five days’ pay. It is time for this disastrous social experiment to end. To add insult to injury, yet again the Cabinet decide to prevent 80% of councillors and 80% of residents from having any say. We are now in a ridiculous situation with no end date to the trial. This is not democratic.”
