Council trialling four-day week insists it will still see fall in agency cover costs as early data reveals two teams saw rise in spend

Two departments at South Cambridgeshire District Council trialling a four-day working week are spending thousands more on agency staff, according to data submitted to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

The council’s trial, which started in January 2023, sparked concern from Government that such an approach could impact its ‘Best Value Duty’ under the Local Government Act.

In November, the council was issued with a best value notice by the DLUHC, which included a formal request for additional detail on the trial’s impact, “both on individual employee productivity, the council and the provision of services as a whole.”

The data, made public this week, shows that in November 2023, the finance and waste departments spent more on agency staff than they did in an average month in 2022-23.

The finance team was reported to have spent £108,089 between 30 October and 3 December 2023, more than double last year's average.

In the same period, the waste department spent £70,878, 53% higher than its 2022-23 monthly average.

However, other departments reduced the amount they spent on agency staff. The environment team spent nothing during November.

Explaining the agency staff figures for finance, the council said that a Revenues and Benefits Restructure service review commenced in January 2023. As part of this, it was recognised several posts would no longer be needed over a period of a year or two.

As posts became vacant, they were filled temporarily by agency staff “to avoid recruiting permanently, and then having to make redundancies further down the line”.

On the waste department figures, the council noted that at the launch of new collection routes, Greater Cambridge Shared Waste employed temporary additional agency staff to support the process.

Other measures of performance in the data included working days lost due to staff sickness, staff turnover rate and vacant roles.

In the shared waste department, 5.6% of working days were lost due to sickness, followed by shared planning at 4.8%.

A South Cambridgeshire District Council spokesperson said: “Before we announced the trial, the Council was spending about £2 million a year on 22 agency staff who were covering vacancies - often in specialist roles where the private sector pays more. This bill could be halved if all the agency posts were filled permanently.

“Our Employment and Staffing Committee heard in November how all but two of these posts had been filled or were no longer needed. This means the Council expects to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds less on agency cover for these posts this year. It is however important to note that the Council’s agency spend still fluctuates due to the need to bring in agency staff to carry out short term programmes where permanent staff are not required. For example, this includes employing temporary staff to support the Council’s commitments under the Homes for Ukraine scheme.”

A DLUHC spokesperson said: “We have been clear that the Government does not support the four-day working week.

“We are taking steps to ensure that South Cambridgeshire District Council is delivering value for money for its residents, and, if necessary, we will take further action to put an end to this experiment.”

Lottie Winson