Local councils across the country are struggling with job recruitment and retention. Melanie Pope, campaigner with the 4 Day Week Campaign, argues a four-day working week could be the answer.

Last week, Birmingham City Council joined the latest string of councils to go bust, and Middlesbrough looks like it could be the next to follow. Whether run by Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats, councils are facing a myriad of pressures on their budgets and running out of money at an alarming rate.

One of the problems is the sheer amount of money they spend on agency staff, a whopping £2.1bn last year alone. Why? Because councils are struggling to recruit and maintain permanent staff.

In figures uncovered by the 4 Day Week Campaign, that figure is up from £1.8bn last year – with Slough topping the league table, spending 42% of their total spend on staff for the year on agency staff.

The Local Government Association (LGA) says nine in 10 councils are struggling to recruit and retain staff, and in 2022/23 councils reported significantly high staff turnover at 26%.

This position is increasingly unsustainable.

Yet South Cambridgeshire District Council has broken the mould. It has saved hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ money through reduced spend on agency staff whilst improving performance. How? By trialling a move to a four-day week, with no loss of pay for staff, between January and March this year.

Despite the Government requesting they stop the trial because they had concerns about ‘value for money’, the trial is continuing because rather than wasting taxpayers money, ironically the move to a four-day week is actually saving taxpayers money.

With the level of pressure on councils only increasing, they need to be able to innovate. A four-day week is a way to compete with the perks the private sector can offer to secure and retain employees. Agency staff are currently being used particularly for areas such as managing parks and streets and waste management – vital public services – but those where, across the country, councils are failing to find the permanent staff they need.

For councils such as Lewisham which have responsibility for children’s social care, spend on agency staff is worryingly high in that area too.

A four-day week provides a range of employee benefits, suddenly making these roles much more attractive.

The biggest ever four-day week trial held by the 4 Day Week Campaign and the think tank Autonomy, involving over 61 companies and 2,900 staff found conclusive evidence of this. 71% of employees said they suffered less from burnout and 60% found it easier to deal with caring responsibilities.

An improved work-life balance is obviously good for employees but what about employers and councils? With staff on full pay but working four-days, it would be natural to expect a decrease in productivity. Yet across the trial, productivity either stayed the same or increased.

Support for a four-day week with no loss of pay is now higher than ever before. Polling consistently shows that more than two-thirds of the public support such a move and we’re not alone.

Between 2015-19, Iceland ran two major trials of a shorter working week in the public sector which were revenue neutral for Reykjavík City Council and the Icelandic national government but with a massive improvement in worker well-being.

From the Scottish Parliament’s newly announced trial in the public sector, to private trials in America, New Zealand and Japan to name just a few, the four-day week is rapidly moving from an idea to reality. Councils need to keep up, and we know from our work at the 4 Day Week Campaign that more and more of them are aware of that.

Covid taught us that we can adapt our working patterns overnight when it becomes a necessity. For councils to survive, the four-day week is looking increasingly necessary.

If this article was of interest, then check out our feature, 'Who’s afraid of the four-day week?'