Cambridgeshire council poised to be first in UK to trial four-day week
A Cambridgeshire council is poised to become the first in the UK to trial a four-day week, in a pioneering test of whether the working pattern can be applied successfully in the public sector without disrupting frontline services.
Councillors at South Cambridgeshire district council will vote later this month on whether to pilot a shortened week on the same pay for 470 desk-based workers before possibly rolling it out to bin collectors. Workers at the authority – which operates in a district of more than 100 villages circling Cambridge – are being informed about the trial on Friday.
Workers who process benefits claims, collect council house rents, process planning applications and carry out environmental health inspections would work 30-hour weeks for the first three months of 2023. Service performance would be monitored and the council said the trial would become permanent only if there was no drop in standards and there was an improvement in staff wellbeing.
Refuse collectors have been left out of the initial trial because of the difficulty of emptying the same amount of bins in 20% less time without adding staff. They may be included later next year.
The move to follow dozens of private companies in attempting a shortened week has been prompted in part by a recruitment crisis, blighting councils across the country, with years of relatively low pay in local government deterring applicants. Between January and March, only about half of South Cambridgeshire’s vacancies were filled.
More than half of councils in England and Wales report having insufficient staff to run all services normally, according to the Local Government Association. In July, the organisation’s head of workforce, Naomi Cooke, said: “We are the lowest
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