Government Cracks Down on Four-Day-Week Council After Services Slump

The Government has written to the first council in the country to institute a four-day working week to express its “deep disappointment” following reports of a sharp deterioration in services. The Mail has more.

Communities Secretary Steve Reed expressed his “deep disappointment” in a letter to the leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council Bridget Smith.

The District Council became the first local authority to trial staff working 80% of their contracted hours this summer, giving bin collectors and social housing officials 100% of their pay for working for just four days.

It said it expects to save about £400,000 annually due to lower staff turnover and relying less on agency workers.

Now another 25 council are weighing up the move, with fears it is hitting productivity and adding pressure on public finances.

However, central Government currently has no powers to force councils to stop a four-day week or tell them how many days they should work.

Mr Reed has since asked for answers in a letter to Ms Smith, the Liberal Democrat leader in South Cambridgeshire, following reports of deterioration in council services.

In leaked extracts, Mr Reed claimed an independent study found key housing-related services South Cambridgeshire had declined, “especially where vulnerable residents may be affected”. 

In the letter to Ms Smith, he wrote: “The independent report shows that performance declined in key housing-related services, including rent collection, re-letting times, and tenant satisfaction with repairs, especially where vulnerable residents may be affected.

“If social housing is being built by this Government, and your team are unable to move residents into them so that they are standing empty, then I must reiterate my deep disappointment with your conduct.”

Mr Reed added that he is “seeking assurance” over the trial, which he pointed out was not Government policy for local authorities to offer full-time pay for part-time work.

“In particular, I would like to understand how the council is seeking to mitigate the impact to those services which have worsened over the course of the four-day working week trial,” he wrote.

He added that he would like to meet with council office to “provide that assurance”.

Worth reading in full.

In the Telegraph, Len Shackleton notes that the council’s Chief Executive, Liz Watts, is “reportedly writing a PhD on the four-day week” and is “strongly committed to the scheme and is disinclined to back down”.

Len also notes some of the problems with the research cited in support of the scheme:

One was that the apparently improved work performance might be in part a product of the way KPIs [Key Performance Indicators] were drawn up and measured. Things like “planning applications completed on time” or “invoices paid in 30 days” looked to be indicators which could easily be gamed. Even if the productivity increase was real, it might be a temporary phenomenon – perhaps a modern example of the early 20th-century “Hawthorne effect” where observing workers’ response to new work arrangements led to a change in behaviour which dissipated when the practice was normalised and oversight removed.

The cost savings to the council associated with the change have been again emphasised by Ms Smith in her response to Steve Reed. But these gains probably arise from first mover advantage. As South Cambridgeshire is offering a better overall package than the four other local councils in commuting distance, it is unsurprising that fewer staff want to leave, and that job adverts attract more applicants. But it can’t be assumed that if other councils nearby also go for a four-day week, there will be a similar financial gain for all of them. The latecomers would not be offering anything which you couldn’t already get in Cambourne. Nor can we assume that every other council’s workers will get that wellbeing buzz which South Cambridgeshire claims.

And of course, the most important test of success – the impact on service users – was largely absent from the earlier research, and has now been shown (no surprises here) to suffer when staff drop a fifth of their working hours.