Liberal Democrat-controlled South Cambridgeshire District Council has hit back at accusations that they tampered with a report to present an optimistic picture of the controversial four-day week trial.
The local authority’s Conservative Group said the report had been edited by council officers to provide ‘a very different picture to the Lib Dem leadership’s previous optimism.’
However, the council leadership said that ‘clarifications’ were made to the report to make it clearer to read and to protect the identity of the councillors who did not wish to be identified.
Cllr Heather Williams, leader of the Conservative Opposition at South Cambs, said: ‘What has happened here simply means that we cannot trust the information that we are being provided with. I think it’s no coincidence that the edits that were made removed negative outcomes from the 4-day working week.’
As evidence of their claim, the Conservative Group cited one manager who said they ‘did all the unfinished work on my day off so that my team could have time off. It had a very negative impact on my wellbeing.’
However, the full quote in the original report – seen by LocalGov.co.uk – shows that the manager was critical of the scheme at first but then found that they learnt how to distribute work more responsibly.
A South Cambridgeshire District Council spokesperson said: ‘The clarifications suggested on the draft report were for three reasons. They made some confusing language clearer as the researcher is not a native English speaker, to remove individual member quotes which the Council did not have permission to include in the report, and for brevity.’
If this article was of interest, then check out our feature, 'Why the four-day week could solve the workforce crisis'.
