Cllr Bridget Smith, leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, reflects on the results from the council’s four-day week trial and calls on Labour to back the shorter working week.

In 2022, we embarked on an ambitious trial at South Cambridgeshire District Council. The premise was simple – can we improve officer wellbeing, recruitment, and retention via a four-day week, without harming our services? After 15 months of trial, independent analysis by the universities of Cambridge and Salford, and an intense amount of ministerial intervention, it turns out the answer is a resounding yes.

What we see is remarkable. Turnover is down 39%. The average number of job applications is up 53%. Employee commitment, mental health, physical health, and motivation are all up. And all these achievements made without impacting our performance. Twenty-two out of 24 key performance indicators (KPIs) show performance was at least maintained and in fact 11 KPIs show improvement over the course of the trial. All of this comes happily alongside a £371,500 net saving to local taxpayers.

On Thursday, full council will look through the results of the trial and I’m sure have a lively debate, but our next actions will rely as much on what is said in Westminster as anywhere else.

In November, we received a best value notice from the Conservative Government, setting out their ideological opposition to a four-day week and asking the council to send a raft of data to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) each week. In December, the Government asked as part of the Local Government Financial Settlement Consultation, if there was support for punishing councils trialling four-day working arrangements (pejoratively referred to as ‘part-time work for full-time pay’) by using ‘financial levers’. This was overwhelmingly rejected by councils – with 65% rejecting it. The threat of ‘financial levers’ was still hanging over us however, regardless of the consultation outcome and in May, the minister signed off on the best value notice for a further six months after it had lapsed.

The Conservatives treated local democracy with contempt. Rather than engaging with South Cambs positively (despite many invitations, ministers refused to meet with us), they set off on an ideological crusade despite the mounting evidence in favour of a four-day week. The culture-war style attacks, the weaponisation of best value notices for political purposes (both here and elsewhere) and the use of financial threats all sadly became hallmarks of how Tory ministers worked.

Labour have said they want to reset the relationship between central and local government and that can’t come soon enough. With new ministers in Whitehall, and in fact with a number of former-DLUHC ministers out of Westminster altogether, Labour have some important questions they need to answer.

What relationship does it want with local authorities – does it want that relationship to be adversarial or a partnership?

Labour’s agenda naturally will be better served with the support of local government. Labour need to take the first steps towards healing that relationship, inviting local leaders to the table, engaging proactively and openly. From the Conservatives, we heard far more about what ministers thought via the media than from ministers themselves. An example that sticks in my mind – one DLUHC minister set up a radio interview which he used as a platform to call councillors ‘disappointing and arrogant’, all whilst failing to respond to invitations to meet with those very same councillors.

What should Labour do about other councils wanting to trial a four-day week?

Important to a healthy relationship between central and local government is that we can trust that when local, democratically elected decision-makers take a different view to that of the government, the government won’t try to unduly overturn those decisions. Labour haven’t shown their cards on the merits of a four-day week, but it looks like we aren’t going to see the same sort of blind opposition to innovation that we saw from the Tories. I am hopeful that Labour will do the right thing here and leave the decision in the hands of locally elected councillors.

What should Labour do about South Cambridgeshire?

Our trial is complete. The results are in. But we still can’t make a final decision on whether or not to become a four-day week employer permanently. That decision can only be made once we have carried out a consultation in line with our best value duty. Labour needs to make clear sooner rather than later if it intends to keep the threat of financial levers or not (and if it plans to keep the politically motivated best value notice in place) so that we can allow the proper democratic process to reach an evidence-based conclusion.

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