South Cambridgeshire District Councillors to send government data on 4 day week trial performance
The Government raised concerns it wasn't offering value for money
Last updated 21st Nov 2023
Staff at South Cambridgeshire District Council have agreed to send the Government data on their performance as their 4 day working week trial continues.
The Council has been running a 4 day week since January, but maintained its full opening hours and stay open to the public later on Wednesdays.
it was introduced to try and address recruitment and retention issues, which the Council say are particularly acute in South Cambridgeshire due to the 'strength of the local economy and high cost of living.'
An Extraordinary Council Meeting was held yesterday evening (Monday 20th), for Councillors to discuss a Best Value Notice issued by the Government.
The Notice was issued to South Cambridgeshire District Council for its four-day week trial.
Notices of this type have been issued to three other local government bodies this year - but for concerns such as an unrealistic budget, significant governance weaknesses and major cultural problems.
The Best Value Notice requests the Council provides the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) with extensive data on a weekly basis for the next six months. This covers staffing, costs, service delivery, performance, and resident feedback.
Council officers are now gathering the data requested – some of which is already routinely collected and reported on, with the first weekly report to DLUCH already being sent.
They say work is continuing to assess the impact of reporting some information on a weekly basis.
The Notice also asks for historical data on staff, costs, services, and performance dating back to 2018.
Further details about the cost of the trial, improvements outside of the trial, Annual Governance Statements and other policies have also been requested.
The Council has until 8th December to provide this retrospective data.
South Cambridgeshire District Council’s Lead Cabinet Member for Resources, Cllr John Williams, said: “Our staff turnover is down, our sickness is down, and our recruitment has seen clear benefits with almost 100 new staff joining the Council this year.
"The performance of our services across the board during the trial is encouraging – and we’re collecting more than 99% of bins on-time every week.
"Thanks to an improvement in recruitment, the amount we expect to spend on agency staff cover this year is also hundreds of thousands of pounds lower than it would otherwise have been.
"These findings are exactly why we wanted to test a four-day week over a longer period.
“We are now working to fulfil the Government’s requests to answer up to 101 questions every week.
"Some of the data we already collect – whereas some is likely to be incredibly time-consuming to piece together, will cost money and could reduce our productivity.
"Because of this we continue to have queries about some of the information being asked for and have suggested some areas where the data request could be altered to make it more meaningful.”
The Council said before announcing the four-day week trial, it was spending about £2 million a year on 23 agency staff who were covering vacancies - often in specialist roles where the private sector pays more.
They say this bill could be halved if all the agency posts were filled permanently.