Was this council’s four-day week experiment really a success?

What a surprise. South Cambridgeshire District Council has declared its controversial experiment with a four day week – which put council staff on a 32 hour rather than 40-hour week with no loss of pay – a tremendous success. The council, whose chief executive Liz Watts was revealed last year to be doing a doctorate on the subject of the four day week as well as her day job, has published the results of a study by the Universities of Salford and Cambridge which claims that the council’s performance improved on 11 measures during the trial period compared with prior performance and decreased on just two measures.

You can read the report for yourself and judge the validity of research which claims to be independent yet is based entirely on performance data collected by the council itself. One of the greatest claimed successes – a reduction in staff turnover – seems to be based on some rather low numbers: an average of two staff per month leaving their council jobs during their trial compared with an average of 2.5 in previous years. One of the performance measures relates to the percentage of formal complaints resolved; should we really trust the council to decide when a complaint has been resolved?

The report doesn’t seem to ask local residents and council taxpayers what they thought of the council’s performance during the trial. The one measure which does involve asking outsiders – the satisfaction rating of council tenants having repairs undertaken – shows rather lamentable levels of satisfaction. The study, however, doesn’t count the lousy performance as ‘significant’, not least because there was a big dip in the preceding period during Covid. Performance is still lagging behind pre-Covid levels.

But let’s leave all that aside and assume that South Cambridgeshire District Council really has managed at least to maintain its performance during the trial of the four-day week. If an organisation really can manage to produce as much with its staff working 32 hours a week rather than 40, what does it tell you about its existing working practices? The council claims, for example, that it has managed to maintain the same level of bin collections by rationalising routes used by lorries. It could, of course, have undertaken that rationalisation without reducing the hours of individual workers, and thus saved taxpayers money by employing fewer dustmen. It would also have saved taxpayers having to shell out for an additional two lorries which it says will be needed if the trial is to be made permanent.

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Surely any private company seeking more efficient ways of doing things would use those efficiency gains to increase output – it wouldn’t pass the entire benefit to employees by giving them an extra day off every week. Don’t council tax-payers get to see the benefits of more efficient working by having their bills reduced? It would seem not. The council has jacked up the council tax bill for a Band D home by nearly 6 per cent to £2,303.96 this year.

While we are at it, there is another very significant saving which could be made: to abolish South Cambridgeshire District Council altogether. I used to live in South Cambridgeshire and I couldn’t much see the point of the council then, but reading through its performance report it becomes clear how few responsibilities it actually has. Roads? No, they are the business of Cambridgeshire County Council. Schools? Ditto. Social services? Ditto. Emptying the bins? South Cambs does that in a partnership with Cambridgeshire City Council. Planning? Ditto. There is very little that this council actually has sole responsibility for, and yet it occupies a grand HQ building built 20 years ago and which was upgraded with a £1.9 million ‘net zero retrofit’ in 2021. I say ‘occupies’, but it is now looking for new uses for the building, much of which lies empty as a result of staff working from home.

Why not merge this council with Cambridge City Council, with one chief executive and one set of officials, and sell off the redundant building? That is what would happen if it were a private company with shareholders. Instead, the council seems to be run with one purpose alone: to provide an agreeable lifestyle for its staff.