Taxpayers’ Alliance launches petition against South Cambridgeshire District Council’s four day week

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has visited Cambourne in a bid to gain more signatures for its petition against South Cambridgeshire District Council’s four day week trial.

The council is four months into a four-day working week trial for office staff and councillors are expected to vote on whether to extend this trial to March 2024 at a cabinet meeting on May 15.

The campaigners are attempting to halt the trial, which they believe is detrimental to the delivery of public services.

Speaking from Cambourne today (Tuesday, May 9), Elliot Keck, investigations campaign manager of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: “Local taxpayers are furious at the arrogance of council bosses who are putting ideology ahead of delivery.

“With council key performance indicators down, it’s clear that the services residents rely on are an afterthought in this experiment.

“It’s time to stop the council clock off and get staff back to work.”

The Taxpayers’ Alliance has raised doubts about the success of South Cambridgeshire District Council’s four-day working week trial and claims that its own analysis shows that key performance indicators for the council are down when compared to before the pandemic.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance is calling on the council to halt the trial and address what it sees as poor levels of service delivery, including tackling the low number of staff working from an office.

The Leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, Cllr Bridget Smith, said: “The report that we’ll be discussing at our Cabinet meeting on Monday clearly shows that a four-day week could save taxpayers’ money – though this seems to have been lost on the Taxpayers' Alliance. We employed 23 agency staff in August – at a cost of more than £2 million a year. Filling these posts with permanent staff would halve that cost. Last year we were only able to fill eight in ten – or fewer – of our vacancies. We took the pioneering step to become the first Council to trial a four day week to see whether we can address these critical recruitment and retention problems. During the trial, we’ve seen an increase in the number of people applying for our jobs and fewer people saying they’re intending to leave. We have independently-verified evidence that our service levels have been maintained or improved, and there has been a positive impact on staff wellbeing.”