A Lib Dem spokesman has said the South Cambs Lib Dem Leader’s four-day week figures have “no basis in reality”.
Since January 2023, the Lib Dem administration has been trialling four days’ work for five days’ pay for over 470 desk-based council staff.
Conservative councillors accused the administration of spending £3.3 million of taxpayers’ money to give staff an extra day off each week – a cost calculated using figures provided by Lib Dem Leader Cllr Bridget Smith in a council meeting.
And yet, in a recent article in the Royston Crow, a Lib Dem spokesman has said this number is “without a clear source”.
At a Full Council meeting in October 2023, Cllr Heather Williams (Leader of the Conservative Opposition) asked: “Can the Leader say how many hours a day on average are staff actually contracted for?” Cllr Smith responded that full-time officers are contracted for 37 hours a week, or 7.4 hours a day.
Cllr Graham Cone (Deputy Leader of the Conservative Opposition) then asked: “Can the Leader tell us what the average hourly wage is for all staff?” Cllr Smith said the average pay for staff was £18.20 per hour.
Later on in the meeting, Cllr Heather Williams said the four-day week would affect all residents because £3.3 million of salaried hours would not be worked in 12 months – based on the Lib Dem Leader’s figures.
The fact that an unnamed Lib Dem spokesman has now come out and said these figures have “no basis in reality” only adds to suspicions that the Lib Dems have no clue how much their four-day week social experiment is costing South Cambs residents.
Concerns over the trial’s cost have already been raised by councillors, as the administration never did a business case to calculate its cost.
The only public papers forming the basis of the trial were seven pages of Cabinet papers considered in a September 2022 meeting.
It is about time the Lib Dem administration gets their story straight on their four-day week trial because spending £3.3 million of taxpayers’ money per year to give staff an extra day off each week seems drastically inappropriate during a cost of living crisis.
