South Cambs: Four-day week trial will end if performance drops

Councillor Bridget Smith said she had never committed to continuing the trial "come hell or high water".

The district council began the four-day week trial at the start of the year to see if the change would help its recruitment and staff retention.

The authority has faced backlash over the trial and last week the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities issued a Best Value Notice to the authority.

The notice said the government did not believe the district council was fully analysing the impacts of the trial on its services, and said it would need to see evidence of the impact the trial was having on individual employee productivity and the council’s services as a whole.

At a meeting of the cabinet this week (November 7), Cllr Smith said the authority was still waiting to hear what further details the government wanted to see and said they would not be able to make any formal decision on how to proceed until then.

Leader of South Cambs District Council's Conservative group Cllr Heather Williams (Image: SCDC)

A motion from the leader of the Conservative opposition group, Councillor Heather Williams, calling for a full council debate on whether the trial should continue was also considered by the cabinet.

Cllr Smith said the motion was noted and said if the authority got to the point of considering making the four-day week permanent, then this decision would be taken by the full council.

Cllr Williams asked what guarantee there was that the cabinet would not extend the trial.

Cllr Smith said this would depend on how the trial went and whether the cabinet deemed it was necessary to extend the trial.

She said the trial was "constantly" being reviewed and that if there was a downturn in the council’s performance it would be stopped.

She also highlighted that a report on the trial is due to be presented to the district council’s employment and staffing committee later this week (Thursday, November 9).