Tory Minister torpedo council's experiment with four day week.

[yorksrob]

In spite of numerous private enterprises trialling the four day week, many with positive results, it seems that the Local Authority for South Cambridgeshire has had its right to manage its own day to day human resources curtailed by a Government Minister:

Minister asks South Cambridgeshire council to end four-day week trial

Lee Rowley says a trial, which a council leader says cut the need for agency staff, should end now.

www.bbc.co.uk

The local government minister has formally requested a council ends its trial of a four-day week "immediately" over concerns about "value for money".

South Cambridgeshire District Council's trial was due to run until 2024, but in a letter, Lee Rowley said such an approach could breach its legal duties.

The Liberal Democrat-led council is the first in the UK to trial the system.

Defending the scheme, leader Bridget Smith said it had helped address a reliance on expensive agency staff.

She said an assessment showed that "performance was maintained" and added that she was "surprised" to receive the letter and wanted to meet "with ministers to discuss this matter".

The authority started the pilot in January for the 450 desk-based staff at its office in Cambourne.

It was recently extended until next March.

Lee Rowley
IMAGE SOURCE,DAVID WOOLFALL
Image caption,
Mr Rowley said his department would "shortly be issuing clear guidance" about the working practice
Mr Rowley wrote to Ms Smith with a formal request for the council to "end your experiment immediately".

He said he had concerns about the impact of the trial on the needs of local taxpayers at a time when the council should be "cutting backlogs, answering queries and improving efficiency".

"I strongly believe in the ability of councils to innovate and find new ways to discharge their responsibilities," he said.

"Removing up to 20% of the capacity to do those activities is not something which should be acceptable for a council seeking to demonstrate value for money for its taxpayers and residents."

He said while some private sector organisations "may choose to experiment with their own capital and capacity regarding 'four-day working weeks', local government should not do the same".

He added that such an approach could breach the council's legal duties under the Local Government Act and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities would "shortly be issuing clear guidance".

South Cambs DC offices
IMAGE SOURCE,STEVE HUBBARD/BBC
Image caption,
About 450 staff at South Cambridgeshire District Council have been trialling a four-day week
In a statement, the council leader said she was "surprised to receive Mr Rowley's letter and we have written to him to request a meeting with ministers to discuss this matter".

"This is a trial, but we have already seen strong independently assessed evidence which showed that performance was maintained, and in some cases improved, in the first three months," she said.

"At the start of our trial, we were carrying a £2m annual agency bill.

"During the first three months of the trial, we filled four permanent posts that had previously been impossible to fill [and] this has reduced our annual bill by £300,000."

She added that as time had gone on, it had become "increasingly clear that recruitment has been positively affected, both in terms of the quality and number of applicants, and the consequent success in filling vacant posts".

Joe Ryle, director of the 4-Day Week campaign group, also criticised Mr Rowley's request.

He said the move "flies in the face of all the evidence, which shows the four-day week has been a huge success at the council".

"The four-day week with no loss of pay is already being rolled out across the private sector, so it's only fair the public sector are included too," he added.

"There is no good reason to end this trial, which is already bringing many benefits to council workers, local residents and saving the council money."

Surely the whole point of Local Government is to manage local affairs and if found wanting, get booted out.

I fail to see what justification a central Government minister has for getting involved in a local authority human resources matter, except for ideological squeamishness.

 

[Gloster]

I fail to see what justification a central Government minister has for getting involved in a local authority human resources matter, except for ideological squeamishness.

Because it is a Liberal-Democrat led council. Isn’t that enough justification?

 

[yorksrob]

Because it is a Liberal-Democrat led council. Isn’t that enough justification?

Ha, ha quite.

From a constitutional point of view though, Local Authority officials are answerable to their elected representatives, therefore if they are satisfied with this policy, what business does some interloper from Westminster have, interfering with the day to day running of the Council.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Council Tax capping makes it clear Councils aren't allowed to be run based on local democracy. The meddling stinks.

 

[yorksrob]

Council Tax capping makes it clear Councils aren't allowed to be run based on local democracy. The meddling stinks.

Indeed. It's time that clear delimitations were put between the powers of local and national Government. Day to day management of human resources in the Council should surely come under the remit of local government (within the law, of course).

I suspect that the Local Authority in South Cambridgeshire has a more recent, stable democratic mandate than the shambles in Westminster.

 

[duncanp]

But did service levels at South Cambridgeshire District Council improve or get worse as a result of the experiment?

I am sure that the experiment would attract staff to work for the council. After all, who wouldn't want to have a job where you only worked four days per week, but get paid the same salary as for five days a week?

But unless productivity increases by 20%, or the council recruits more staff to cover the gaps, then service levels will decrease. Everyone will be happy except the council tax payers of South Cambridgeshire.

I would like to know how the council can maintain performance whilst cutting working hours by 20%.

I have similar misgivings about private sector organisations adopting a four day week as well.

 

[yorksrob]

But did service levels at South Cambridgeshire District Council improve or get worse as a result of the experiment?

I am sure that the experiment would attract staff to work for the council. After all, who wouldn't want to have a job where you only worked four days per week, but get paid the same salary as for five days a week?

But unless productivity increases by 20%, or the council recruits more staff to cover the gaps, then service levels will decrease. Everyone will be happy except the council tax payers of South Cambridgeshire.

I would like to know how the council can maintain performance whilst cutting working hours by 20%.

I have similar misgivings about private sector organisations adopting a four day week as well.

That's exactly the point. If services deteriorate, the local electorate can express their dissatisfaction through the local ballot box. There is no need for a pre-emptive intervention from Westminster.

 

[GusB]

But did service levels at South Cambridgeshire District Council improve or get worse as a result of the experiment?

I am sure that the experiment would attract staff to work for the council. After all, who wouldn't want to have a job where you only worked four days per week, but get paid the same salary as for five days a week?

But unless productivity increases by 20%, or the council recruits more staff to cover the gaps, then service levels will decrease. Everyone will be happy except the council tax payers of South Cambridgeshire.

I would like to know how the council can maintain performance whilst cutting working hours by 20%.

I have similar misgivings about private sector organisations adopting a four day week as well.

The opening post quotes a BBC article in which it clearly says that performance levels were maintained.

In a statement, the council leader said she was "surprised to receive Mr Rowley's letter and we have written to him to request a meeting with ministers to discuss this matter".

"This is a trial, but we have already seen strong independently assessed evidence which showed that performance was maintained, and in some cases improved, in the first three months," she said.

"At the start of our trial, we were carrying a £2m annual agency bill.

"During the first three months of the trial, we filled four permanent posts that had previously been impossible to fill [and] this has reduced our annual bill by £300,000."

She added that as time had gone on, it had become "increasingly clear that recruitment has been positively affected, both in terms of the quality and number of applicants, and the consequent success in filling vacant posts".

 

[py_megapixel]

I think there are three separate questions here which need to be disentangled from each other if there is to be any meaningful discussion:

1. Is a four-day working week a good or a bad idea in principle?
2. Is it an trialling a four-day working week for its staff a responsible or an irresponsible thing for South Cambridgeshire District Council to do?
3. is this something that central government should be intervening in?

 

[duncanp]

The opening post quotes a BBC article in which it clearly says that performance levels were maintained.

I would like to know how it is possible to maintain performance levels if staff are only working four days a week instead of five.

Are they working longer hours during the four days that they are working? (eg. four days @ 8.75 hours per day instead of five days @ 7 hours per day)

If not, then either staff are being more productive during their four days a week at work, which suggests that they weren't being as productive as they could be whilst working 5 days a week, or the figures which pretend that performance is being maintained are a complete lie.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Council Tax capping makes it clear Councils aren't allowed to be run based on local democracy. The meddling stinks.

When the last time that the Labour Party were in power, did they always espouse non-Governmental local authority powers with no involvement from Central Government?

 

[Magdalia]

I would like to know how it is possible to maintain performance levels if staff are only working four days a week instead of five.

This is local to me, so I have been following it for some time.

In the Cambridge area the labour market is very overheated which makes recruitment and retention a challenge for all employers.

South Cambridgeshire had a high vacancy rate, partly covered by expensive agency workers, who are rarely as productive as employees, and partly jobs not getting done because there was nobody to do them.

By going down to 4 days South Cambridgeshire became a much more attractive proposition in the labour market, which enables it to fill the vacancies and save a fortune on agency staff. Furthermore, by offering more competitive employment terms they get better quality candidates. It is quite plausible that they can recruit new people to work 4 days who wouldn't consider working for them on a 5 day week, and who are 25 per cent more productive than the new people they might or might not have got with a 5 day week.

And the productivity of existing staff doesn't fall by 20 per cent just because they are working 4 days instead of 5. People will work harder when they are in the office if they know that they will get more decent rest at the weekend. To see how this works, think of limited overs cricket, and Duckworth/Lewis: if a 50 over match is reduced to 40 overs, the runs scored are reduced by much less than 20 per cent.

For what is supposed to be a party of enterprise, the Conservative party is remarkably ignorant about how productivity really works.

 

[GusB]

I would like to know how it is possible to maintain performance levels if staff are only working four days a week instead of five.

Are they working longer hours during the four days that they are working? (eg. four days @ 8.75 hours per day instead of five days @ 7 hours per day)

If not, then either staff are being more productive during their four days a week at work, which suggests that they weren't being as productive as they could be whilst working 5 days a week, or the figures which pretend that performance is being maintained are a complete lie.

Perhaps people have more energy to do the work now that they have an extra day to recharge and they feel more motivated when they are working. If the same amount and more work is being done in 80% of the time, what's the problem?

I haven't had many 9 to 5 office jobs, but Monday mornings and Friday afternoons were usually fairly unproductive anyway. Far better to combine those two unproductive half-days and not be there at all.

It's rather amusing to watch Tory brains melt as they struggle to comprehend schemes like this.

 

[duncanp]

This is local to me, so I have been following it for some time.

In the Cambridge area the labour market is very overheated which makes recruitment and retention a challenge for all employers.

South Cambridgeshire had a high vacancy rate, partly covered by expensive agency workers, who are rarely as productive as employees, and partly jobs not getting done because there was nobody to do them.

By going down to 4 days South Cambridgeshire became a much more attractive proposition in the labour market, which enables it to fill the vacancies and save a fortune on agency staff. Furthermore, by offering more competitive employment terms they get better quality candidates. It is quite plausible that they can recruit new people to work 4 days who wouldn't consider working for them on a 5 day week, and who are 25 per cent more productive than the new people they might or might not have got with a 5 day week.

And the productivity of existing staff doesn't fall by 20 per cent just because they are working 4 days instead of 5. People will work harder when they are in the office if they know that they will get more decent rest at the weekend. To see how this works, think of limited overs cricket, and Duckworth/Lewis: if a 50 over match is reduced to 40 overs, the runs scored are reduced by much less than 20 per cent.

For what is supposed to be a party of enterprise, the Conservative party is remarkably ignorant about how productivity really works.

So in other words the staff weren't being as productive as they could be when they were working 5 days a week.

 

[Magdalia]

So in other words the staff weren't being as productive as they could be when they were working 5 days a week.

No, the workforce as a whole is more productive. The main effect comes from replacing unproductive agency staff and zero productive vacancies with highly productive permanent employees. This outweighs any reduction in the productivity of existing employees, which will be marginal, and much less than 20 per cent.

 

[Falcon1200]

I would like to know how it is possible to maintain performance levels if staff are only working four days a week instead of five.

As would I!

So in other words the staff weren't being as productive as they could be when they were working 5 days a week.

That can surely be the only conclusion, given that according to the Council Leader the staff are achieving as much in four days as they previously did in five. Which does not say much for the Council's performance monitoring systems, given that one-fifth of staff time was completely unproductive.

With the cost savings thanks to only having to provide heating, lighting etc for the Council's offices on four days a week instead of five, has there been a corresponding reduction in Council Taxpayers' bills?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

No, the workforce as a whole is more productive. The main effect comes from replacing unproductive agency staff and zero productive vacancies with highly productive permanent employees. This outweighs any reduction in the productivity of existing employees, which will be marginal, and much less than 20 per cent.

Rather a blanket statement to make that agency staff are unproductive. Have you a source for that statement. With the matter of the National Health Service to the fore at this moment in time, would you also claim that agency nursing are any less effective than the NHS fully employed ursing staff?

 

[Magdalia]

Have you a source for that statement.

Yes. Experience from 25 years of management.

would you also claim that agency nursing are any less effective than the NHS fully employed ursing staff?

Yes. Though effectiveness is less of an issue with nursing in the NHS because nursing is a very homogeneous activity with little difference in working practices and systems from hospital to hospital. But although agency nursing staff may be similarly effective as permanent nursing staff, they are not as productive because they cost a lot more.

 

[THC]

Rather a blanket statement to make that agency staff are unproductive. Have you a source for that statement. With the matter of the National Health Service to the fore at this moment in time, would you also claim that agency nursing are any less effective than the NHS fully employed ursing staff?

Leaving aside your blatant straw man, spend on agency staff will not deliver the same level of productivity as an equal spend on permanent staff, as the hiring agency's fees will need to be paid on top of wages. That should be obvious.

THC

 

[duncanp]

With the cost savings thanks to only having to provide heating, lighting etc for the Council's offices on four days a week instead of five, has there been a corresponding reduction in Council Taxpayers' bills?

I think we all know the answer to that question.

Clue : it isn't Yes.

 

[Gloster]

I would have thought that the main concern is how the Minister justifies demanding that the experiment be stopped immediately, particularly at this stage. Why the experiment might produce better productivity is another question.

Carrying out the trial seems to be justified as there appear to be good grounds to believe that this will be to the council’s advantage due to increased productivity, better recruitment, etc. The initial trial suggests that it is producing improvements and the council have decided to extend it to gain more data. This seems to me to be a sensible policy. Once the information is in the council, and others, can look at it and decide whether to abandon, extend or modify the policy.

Instrad of waiting to see what the results are and whether a four-day week will be of wider advantage to the sector, the Minister wants to stop the experiment. The most he should have limited himself to would be saying that no other council should try it until the results are in and even that is arguable. He, frankly, seems to be acting against the council and its council tax payers interests: the obvious assumption is that this is for party political purposes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jul 2023 ==

I think we all know the answer to that question.

Clue : it isn't Yes.

Irrelevant. You can hardly expect the council to start cutting bills part way through an experiment, can you. Any gains, if there are gains, will be in the long-term.

 

[SuspectUsual]

With the cost savings thanks to only having to provide heating, lighting etc for the Council's offices on four days a week instead of five, has there been a corresponding reduction in Council Taxpayers' bills?

I think we all know the answer to that question.

Clue : it isn't Yes.

Good! I would hope the answer would be no.

Obviously it depends on the specific job roles in the pilot, but the council would need to provide access to services five days a week, so surely staff are working various combinations of 4 over 5?

Maybe @Magdalia knows the details

 

[Falcon1200]

The main effect comes from replacing unproductive agency staff and zero productive vacancies with highly productive permanent employees.

Why could that not have been done without also reducing the working week? And that fact that it has been done surely indicates that the Council had previously been hugely inefficient.

Obviously it depends on the specific job roles in the pilot, but the council would need to provide access to services five days a week, so surely staff are working various combinations of 4 over 5?

Which would still enable the Council to have smaller offices and therefore reduced costs?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Leaving aside your blatant straw man, spend on agency staff will not deliver the same level of productivity as an equal spend on permanent staff, as the hiring agency's fees will need to be paid on top of wages. That should be obvious.

THC

I was not discussing the matter of employment overhead costs, but the commitment of agency staff to their set tasks in comparison to the employed staff commitment.

 

[THC]

That can surely be the only conclusion, given that according to the Council Leader the staff are achieving as much in four days as they previously did in five. Which does not say much for the Council's performance monitoring systems, given that one-fifth of staff time was completely unproductive.

With the cost savings thanks to only having to provide heating, lighting etc for the Council's offices on four days a week instead of five, has there been a corresponding reduction in Council Taxpayers' bills?

Rather a facile comment but I'm sure you knew that when posting it.

The SCDC experiment wasn't just considering individual performance but also service performance across a range of metrics and initial results showed that service performance was maintained in all cases.

The move to a 4-day week did not mean that services were withdrawn on the fifth day. Front-line services were maintained to the same level of availability across the working week with staff being rostered accordingly. Hence no reduction in FM costs.

In my authority we've looked at the SCDC example as we move to make hybrid working permanent. It's enabling us to downsize our estate and make a return from the space we have vacated. And it's enabled us to recruit to hard-to-fill vacancies as we can now draw from a much wider talent pool. We're seeing the benefits in both productivity and wellbeing terms and wouldn't go back to five-day office working even if we could.

SCDC are to be applauded for their trial as it's shown others in our sector the art of the possible. The Minister is Cnut-like in trying to stem the tide, as the move to more flexible working is inexorable and local government will deliver it one way or another whatever diktat he seeks to impose.

THC

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Yes. Experience from 25 years of management.

Yes. Though effectiveness is less of an issue with nursing in the NHS because nursing is a very homogeneous activity with little difference in working practices and systems from hospital to hospital. But although agency nursing staff may be similarly effective as permanent nursing staff, they are not as productive because they cost a lot more.

I too was at Senior Management level from the early days of my 30s until I retired at the age of 65 in 2010.

 

[Gloster]

Why could that not have been done without also reducing the working week? And that fact that it has been done surely indicates that the Council had previously been hugely inefficient.

Because the four-day week has produced more and better applicants to fill the vacancies. But let’s blame council employees, nobody ever speaks up for them.

Which would still enable the Council to have smaller offices and therefore reduced costs?

It would hardly be a sensible idea to uproot the whole council and move to a new set of offices just for the experiment. What if it doesn’t work? (Although it sounds to me as if it is working, at least in a substantial part.)

 

[Magdalia]

That can surely be the only conclusion, given that according to the Council Leader the staff are achieving as much in four days as they previously did in five. Which does not say much for the Council's performance monitoring systems, given that one-fifth of staff time was completely unproductive.

No that's just the most simplistic conclusion. In practice, few jobs at places like local councils operate at a standard rate of productivity from 0900 on Monday to 1700 on Friday: no time is completely unproductive, but a shorter working week will squeeze out the least productive time.

With the cost savings thanks to only having to provide heating, lighting etc for the Council's offices on four days a week instead of five, has there been a corresponding reduction in Council Taxpayers' bills?

Obviously it depends on the specific job roles in the pilot, but the council would need to provide access to services five days a week, so surely staff are working various combinations of 4 over 5?

From the public perspective there is no change to availability of service, public facing offices and phone lines still have the same opening hours.

The council's HQ in Cambourne will still be open for the same hours but 4 day working, if continued, combined with working from home, will mean that, in the fullness of time, less office space will be needed, and the benefit of that would flow through into council tax bills. South Cambridgeshire relocated to Cambourne in 2004, which I suspect is considerably cheaper than their old HQ, which was in the since demolished Great Eastern House in Cambridge, so their accommodation costs are probably already quite low compared to other similar councils.

 

[THC]

I was not discussing the matter of employment overhead costs, but the commitment of agency staff to their set tasks in comparison to the employed staff commitment.

And as a budget holder I want to know how much bang I get for my buck. With agency staff there is already a 15-25% hit because of that overhead. The fact that an agency staff member may individually deliver the same output as a permanent staff member does not alter that fact. With your vast experience I'd expect you to understand that.

THC

 

[birchesgreen]

Seem a few people on here think workers are machines who should be able to work non-stop all day / week long. Humans arn't quite like that.