Four-day week for council workers sets a disastrous example
CHRIS RADBURN FOR THE TIMES
Paying people to work less for the same salary is, not surprisingly, popular. South Cambridgeshire District Council, which since 2023 has given staff the option of working a four-day week, insists that the trial has been a great success: staff turnover has gone down and job applications are up. So pleased is the authority's Liberal Democrat leader with the trial, which she claims has saved £400,000 a year, that she proposes to make the arrangement permanent. The Conservative opposition is appalled. The results, it says, have been manipulated, key council services have suffered and voters are outraged. Little wonder.
The experiment, which mirrors trials put in place by several private companies after the Covid pandemic, is based on a wholly misleading premise: that employees will be so motivated by the promise of extra leisure that they will work with increased intensity and efficiency, accomplishing in four days what was previously done in five. That may hold true for a few weeks or even years. But if such efficiencies can be achieved, why can the same savings and improvements not also be made during a five-day week? And will employees keep up the intensive pace or slip back to the normal routines of most jobs?
Carrying out some tasks in less time may indeed become easier with the use of robots and artificial intelligence. But that could take years to percolate down to daily administration. What of bin collections or manning consumer contact centres — already one of the most infuriatingly neglected aspects of councils, where replacing humans with voice recordings defeats the whole purpose? Surveys of the Cambridgeshire experiment found plenty of consumer dissatisfaction in these areas as well as a dip in rent collection, delays in re-letting housing and lower tenant satisfaction.
• First council set to adopt permanent four-day week
Well-meaning proposals for a better work-life balance, or attempts to solve unemployment by cutting overtime, have usually foundered. France limited employment to 35 hours a week; it turned out to be a disastrous flop. Jobs could not be finished, overtime was not allowed and everyone complained. The law was watered down. But while flexible working time and especially provision for part-time jobs to bring more people into the workforce are sensible, the argument that a shorter working week will lead to greater productivity seems perverse. It is also hardly the example needed at a time when Britain is desperately attempting to raise its poor and uncompetitive productivity level. A few jobs can be accomplished in short bursts of intense activity; most cannot.
If the South Cambridgeshire model is used as a template across the country, workers in other sectors where a four-day week is impossible will demand compensation. Any rise in job satisfaction is welcome and economically helpful, as is job retention. But Germany, where Friday is now virtually written off as a working day, has seen a major slide in productivity. No local authority in Britain and certainly not the entire nation can afford that now.
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