South Cambridgeshire District Council’s four-day week trial is approved despite opposition

A trial of a four-day working week for South Cambridgeshire District Council workers has been approved despite opposition and will begin in the new year.

The three-month pilot will apply only to desk-based staff although the Liberal Democrat-run council has said it will consider further trials involving bin crews if it proves successful.

About 470 council workers will be involved, at all pay grades, and will work 30 hours, instead of 37.5 hours. They will receive their full pay in a move designed to aid recruitment and retention.

Conservative opposition group leader Cllr Heather Williams (Con, The Mordens) questioned whether it was right to separate out “blue collar” employees from the trial, queried how holidays, sick pay and overtime would be managed in such a scheme, and warned that any trial taking place over winter would not take into account the impact of many people being on holiday.

Cllr Williams also asked how the four-day, 30-hour working week – for which employees will retain full pay – would affect provision of the planning service, which is shared with Cambridge City Council.

It was admitted that this had not yet been negotiated with the
city council.

The leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, Cllr Bridget Smith (Lib Dem, Gamlingay), said after the decision: “We have taken a big step forward in looking to address not only our own recruitment issues, but also the staffing challenges facing local government across the country. But first of all, this must be a trial that works for our residents and businesses, as well as the council.

“This is why we now have a three-month period to carefully plan and prepare. Once we have run this initial test involving our desk-based staff, we will be looking to trial this way of working amongst our bin crews too. This has always been our intention, but the practicalities of working through how this could work for a service that empties tens of thousands of bins every day will take a little longer to work through.

“This is all about seeing whether the benefits on productivity, staff wellbeing and recruitment can be seen in local government as demonstrated in the private sector.

“We only filled around half our vacancies during the first few months of this year and using temporary agency staff instead is expensive. Additionally, we think that this will help us attract a more diverse workforce. If we can help reduce the financial burden of caring and childcare costs, I believe we will open ourselves up as an employer to more people and in turn help them deal with the rising cost of living.”

At a meeting of the South Cambridgeshire District Council’s cabinet on Monday (September 12) cabinet members agreed to proceed with the pilot. Similar trials, including around 3,300 staff, are already under way at 70 other UK organisations.

Cambridge City Council has a joint planning service with South Cambridgeshire District Council, and its strategy and resources scrutiny committee will consider the proposals and implications for that service on October 10.

Cllr Smith told the meeting: “Obviously we have no desire to create a two-tier system within our staff.”

She added that she had spoken with other councils that had a four-day bin collection service but noted “they do it on sort of compressed hours” –meaning they work the same 37.5 hours, but over four days.

“Newcastle do it and they say they don’t collect the bins on a Monday. And the attraction of that is you don’t have all the disruption caused by bank holidays,” said Cllr Smith.

But Cllr Williams said there had been “unhappiness” about the proposal and added that the decision should not be taken at cabinet level.

“It is our view that decision of this size and implication should be debated by full council,” she said. “We have one literally in 10 days time to ensure all residents of South Cambridgeshire have a voice in a decision that will affect all residents.”

Cllr Smith responded that it was “right and proper” that the decision was taken only by the cabinet as this was just “a trial”.

A three-month planning period at the council will take place between October and December before the trial begins in January 2023.

During the trial, the council will measure benchmarks such as how long it takes the council to process benefits claims, council house rent collections, how fast planning applications are determined, including for Cambridge residents, staff turnover and call answering times. Health and wellbeing surveys will also be used to measure the success of the scheme.

The council will also look to see whether it can extend the hours that it is open to the public via the telephone, a soon-to-be-launched webchat service and Teams / Zoom meetings.

If the pilot is successful, the joint Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service will explore how to expand the trial later in the year to bin crews – who empty 127,000 bins across South Cambridgeshire and Cambridge every week.

For more than a year, the council has only been able to fill around eight out of every 10, or fewer, of its vacancies. Between January and March 2022, only around half were filled.

There are 23 agency staff covering office-based roles – costing a potential £2million over the course of a year. The council said if these roles were filled with permanent staff, it would only cost around £1million per year.

Another aspiration of the trial is to investigate whether it can help the council to attract a more diverse workforce, such as those where childcare costs prevent people from working, or those people with caring responsibilities.

Last week, South Cambridgeshire’s Conservative MP Anthony Browne lambasted the trial, saying residents were furious that they would be paying “one of the highest council tax rates in the country” while subsidising more time off for council employees.

He said: “If productivity is so low that you can achieve the same output on 20 per cent fewer hours, what you’re lacking is real leadership.”