Cambridge City Council backs four-day week trial extension

Councillors in Cambridge have given their support for the South Cambridgeshire District Council four-day week trial to be extended into next year.

The district council launched the trial in January to see if the change would help it recruit and retain staff.

However, the trial has been met with backlash from some, who have raised concerns about the impact staff working fewer hours could have on the work done by the council.

Earlier this week, campaigners from the TaxPayers’ Alliance visited Cambourne in a bid to gain more signatures for its petition against the trial, which it believes is detrimental to the delivery of public services.

A report looking at the impact of the first three months found that staff wellbeing had improved, and there had been an increase in productivity at the district council. Although it was noted that the performance measures were still below pre-pandemic levels.

While the trial is being run by the district council, Cambridge City Council’s agreement is needed as the two authorities share some services, including planning and waste collection.

City councillors were asked to support an extension of the trial for desk-based staff at a meeting of its strategy and resources scrutiny committee on Thursday (May 11).

Liz Watts, chief executive at the district council, told councillors there had been “positive” results from the first three months of the trial.

She said there were some early indications that the authority had an “improved ability to recruit and retain” staff, which she said was particularly good news for the shared planning service.

Cllr Jenny Gawthrope Wood (Lab, King’s Hedges) highlighted that some people were working longer than the 80 per cent of their hours they were expected to do.

She asked how it was planned to mitigate this, saying it “could cause a problem of people feeling not able to get all the work done”.

Ms Watts said the three-month trial looked to see if it was possible to get people down to working 80 per cent of their hours and in the extended trial, the authority would be able to look at how it can support those who are working extra to reduce their hours.

However, Ms Watts flagged that even before the trial there had been people who worked over their hours and that it may not be possible to get everyone to work the set hours.

Stephen Kelly, the joint director of planning and economic development, said he was one of those members of staff who struggled to fit his work in the four days, but said the extra day off had been transformational.

He said: “From a wellbeing perspective the fifth day is a totally different day to the weekend. It is an incredibly powerful facility to be able to take stock and actually rebalance.

“As a consequence of that, on some of the four days I do work more than the seven-and-a-half hours, that is because I want to get the outcomes.”

Mr Kelly said he had noticed other members of staff using their extra day off “doing productive things”, and said that there had been a “profound shift” in the planning service as a consequence of people having more time “to live their lives”.

Cllr Tim Bick (Lib Dem, Market) said he was supportive of extending the trial and said he believed it was “worth doing” in order to understand the impact of the change more fully.

However, he asked if there would still be a “route back” if they carried on the trial for a further 12 months and found the four-day week was not working.

Ms Watts said they had “always been really clear” with staff that if performance dropped then the four-day week would not continue.

However, she said this did not mean it would have to go back to the “old patterns”, but said they were open to looking at “slightly different” ways of working.