Council continues trial of four-day week despite ministerial concerns over best value

South Cambridgeshire District Council has announced that its trial of a four-day working week will continue, despite criticism from a minister in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

The council began a three-month trial in January this year after only being able to fill around eight out of every ten of its vacancies.

The initial trial for desk-based staff took place between January and March, before councillors reviewed an independent assessment of performance data and agreed to extend the trial until the end of March 2024. 

In July, Local Government Minister Lee Rowley sent a formal request to the council to end its four-day working week trial, arguing that such an approach could impact its ‘Best Value Duty’ under the Local Government Act.

In a letter to council leader Bridget Smith, Rowley asked the council to “end [its] experiment immediately” and said he had concerns about the “value for money” for local taxpayers.

According to the council, the minister “reiterated his request” last week, raising concerns about seven specific areas of performance by the council during the trial.

Queries raised by Rowley included the council’s “missed target” to re-let housing stock on every month of the trial, a reduction in the number of calls answered by the contact centre, and the number, when answered, that were resolved first time.

He also shared concerns on the council’s missed rent collection target on one month of the trial, missed council tax collection targets, missed housing repair targets and the time taken to process Housing Benefit Claims.

However, councillors have said that some of the criticisms of the council’s performance were “very inaccurate as a result of data being taken out of context”.

The Leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, Cllr Bridget Smith, said: “We have consistently said that this is an evidence-based trial to see whether a four-day week can improve our critical recruitment issues. Not being able to fill vacant posts – especially in our planning team - is disruptive to services for our residents.

"We need the trial to run for its full planned length, until the end of March, to gather data and assess whether a difference has been made. However, we can already see that our recruitment is being positively affected, both in terms of the quality and number of applicants, and the consequent success in filling posts we simply could not recruit to previously, which then leads to reducing the reliance on expensive agency staff as cover. The annual saving of more than £550,000 that we have already seen has been made possible by the fact that we have been able to recruit to nine posts that beforehand we simply could not fill."

Cllr Smith added: “When it comes to how our services are performing, we continue to monitor our full range of key performance indicators closely. Any statistic taken in isolation and without at least some explanation simply does not give the full picture. I am confident that we have answered each of the points raised by Minister Rowley in his letter last week. We remain keen to meet in-person with Minister Rowley to put forwards our rationale and evidence so far.” 

The council revealed yesterday (13 September) that the trial will expand to waste collections next week, with more bins being collected on Tuesday to Friday, and no collections from homes on Mondays.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has been approached for comment.