The government has warned England’s council leaders against introducing four-day weeks for staff, despite studies showing they can be beneficial for workers.
Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, has written to local authorities, stating that they could be considered to be failing if workers receive a full week’s wages for four days of work.
In a letter to councils, Mr Reed said local authorities should not be offering “full-time pay for part-time work”, The Telegraph reported.
Mr Reed reportedly wrote: “The provision the current guidance makes in relation to the four-day week remains in force and that I take this issue very seriously, in particular that ‘council staff undertaking part-time work for full-time pay without compelling justification’ would be considered an indicator, among a wide range of factors, of potential failure.
“I hope that makes my position on this matter and the Government’s policy unambiguously clear to all councils. We will set out further detail in due course in the new Best Value Guidance.”
The Liberal Democrat-led South Cambridgeshire District Council became the first local authority in England to move to a four-day week on a permanent basis, making the decision in July after a trial which began in 2023.
Mr Reed expressed his disapproval with that decision, at the time writing that the district council’s housing service had declined.
The Independent has approached the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for comment.
Responding to Mr Reed, South Cambridgeshire District Council told The Independent that the four-day week arrangement saves public money and has improved performance.
Cllr Bridget Smith, Leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, said: “We are surprised at this latest letter – especially considering we have not yet received any feedback from our recent meeting with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government when we outlined how transformational our four-day week has been.
“Since implementing the four-day week – a working arrangement in which staff do 100 per cent of their work in 32 hours each week – we have delivered an annual saving of almost £400,000, maintained and improved performance, staff turnover has decreased by 41% and the number of applications for roles has surged by 123 per cent.”
Cllr Smith also said the four-day week had helped the council overcome issues in its planning department and said the “results speak for themselves”.
She added: “The independently assessed data for the trial showed that our performance had either improved or remained the same, bar three areas relating to housing. Independent analysis shows that these were due to factors completely independent of the four-day working week. For example, the cost-of-living crisis. In fact, we are a top performing Council nationally in these areas and our performance is improving further.”
Studies have shown that four-day weeks can be beneficial for staff and organisations alike.
A large trial involving 61 companies and almost 3,000 workers took place in the UK from June to December 2022 saw staff working four days a week.
Companies were not required to use one particular type of working time reduction or four-day week, so long as pay was maintained at 100 per cent and employees had a meaningful reduction in work time.
According to the Autonomy Institute, which worked on the study, 56 of the 61 companies continued with a four-day week after the trial, with 18 making it permanent.
It found that 71 per cent of workers had reduced levels of burnout while seeing an increase in ability to balance their work and personal lives.
Company revenue stayed broadly the same over the trial period, rising by 1.4 per cent on average, weighted by company size, across organisations, the study found. The number of staff leaving the firms also decreased by 57 per cent over the trial period.
Likewise, a trial in the public sector in Scotland yielded “overwhelmingly positive” results earlier this year.
Workers at two Scottish public sector bodies – Accountant in Bankruptcy (AiB) and South of Scotland Enterprise (SOSE) – switched to a 32-hour week with no loss of pay or benefits during the year-long trial.
A total of 259 workers are employed between the two organisations, with almost all participating in the trial. In both cases, staff reported less work-related stress and greater satisfaction with their job and work-life balance.
Almost all workers at SOSE (98 per cent) said the four-day week trial improved morale and motivation in the workplace, while those who reported feeling ‘very satisfied’ with their work-life balance rose from four per cent to 84 per cent after just nine months.
