In 2023, South Cambridgeshire District Council (SCDC) took the bold decision to adopt a trial for a four-day working week. Like many local authorities, SCDC has been struggling to hire new staff and retain existing employees. So, in a bid to make their roles more attractive than competing, generally better paid, roles in the private sector, they are requesting that staff in certain departments do 100% of their work in 80% of the time for 100% of their salary. The trial has not been received well by the Conservative government in Westminster though, with the minister for local government, Lee Smith, branding the trial an ‘experiment with taxpayers’ money’ and demanding that it ends early, threatening SCDC with court action if it does not comply with his request.

Whilst reducing the amount of time your staff are expected to by a fifth but maintaining their salaries may seem a waste of money, there are potentially numerous benefits. Offering full-time salary for a part-time week is rather attractive, with examples including those with young children looking to reduce their nursery hours. The expectation is that in return, staff are expected to carry out a full week’s worth of work. Whether this is possible or not will become apparent later in the trial. Research has also shown that four day working weeks can improve staff wellbeing and can lead to more pleasant workplace environments.

Councils have statutory requirements that they have to meet. This means that if they cannot employ staff inhouse, they have to draft in agency workers. This is problematic as agency workers can cost upwards of 50% more than regular staff. They also lack the expertise and experience of long-term employees meaning that they can take longer and complete tasks to a lower standard than the regular counterparts. This is clearly something that all councils want to avoid, which is where SCDC’s plan to attract and retain workers with a four-day working week came in.

So what for the outcome? Well, SCDC say that it has spent £434,000 less on agency staff in ‘hard to fill’ roles since it started the trial. Whether this can be directly attributed to the four-day working week trial is unclear though it does seem somewhat likely to have caused an improvement. Despite their claims, the government, having previously requested the ending of the trial, served SCDC a best value notice at the beginning of November last year, demanding that the council provides evidence on trial’s impact every week for the next six months. It has also alluded to the use of ‘financial levers’ from 2025 to dissuade all local authorities from engaging in such trials.