How a British council trial proved four-day work weeks can succeed

The UK’s largest trial of a four-day working week has been deemed a success — despite being almost shut down by the recently departed Conservative government.

In 2023, South Cambridgeshire District Council began a 15-month experiment, testing four-day weeks with no reduction in wages for 450 office-based staff alongside bin collectors. The project’s extension last year prompted a demand from then Local Government Minister Lee Rowley to council leaders to immediately end the “experiment” over concerns it was a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Despite this pressure, the Liberal Democrat-managed local authority kept the experiment running and was pleased with the results. And no wonder, as the project saw productivity improvements in 11 of 24 areas, with little or no change in another 11.

Issues were caused in two areas: rent collection for council housing and re-letting of empty council houses. However, in both cases, the impact was deemed slight and pinned on the impact of the cost-of-living crisis.

Paying council workers for five days but letting them work only four raised cries of concern for taxpayer value, but the end result has been lower costs, less staff turnover and faster responses to citizen queries.

“These results prove once and for all that a four-day week with no loss of pay absolutely can succeed in a local government setting,” said Joe Ryle, the Director of the 4 Day Week Campaign.

“Not only has work-life balance dramatically improved but so has the performance of the council,” he added.

What happened in the council’s four-day week trial

In the trial, 450 desk staff were kept on the same wages but their working week fell from 40 hours to 32 hours. Council services weren’t shortened, with opening hours kept the same — with the exception of Wednesdays, when hours were actually lengthened. Bins were still collected with the same frequency.

Beyond productivity, the trial saw improvements in employees’ mental and physical health and motivation at work. That saw a 39% fall in staff churn. Indeed, the council said it saved £371,500 over a full year because of the trial — largely down to filling ten difficult-to-fill posts that had previously required more expensive agency freelancers.

It also avoided disruption to services: when bin lorry drivers leave, collections can be delayed while new hires learn routes. According to the council, 11 lorry drivers quit in 2022, but only five did in 2023 after refuse crews were added to the trial.

John Williams, the lead council member for resources, said: “We know we cannot compete on salary alone and have needed to find bold new ways of tackling our recruitment and retention issues.”

Local residents also saw benefits as council services improved with faster responses on planning applications and processing benefits changes. Areas that saw improvement included the number of calls to the contact centre that were actually answered, a reduction in the number of days taken to process benefit and tax changes, the percentage of emergency repairs completed within a day, and so on — you can read the full list here.

What’s next?

The trial finished at the end of March, but four-day work weeks continued at the council — but that’s it.

Because of the pressure put on the council last year, which included the possibility of the then-Conservative government using “financial levers to discourage councils from adopting four-day weeks”, the council said it hasn’t continued with any “meaningful consultation” on its own, instead waiting to see what happens next with the new government.

Labour has previously said it would not push for a wider four-day working week across the country.

But, as Ryle noted: “With a more sympathetic Labour government now in place, there is a huge opportunity for councils and organisations across the public sector to start planning for a four-day working week.”

Hopefully, the South Cambridgeshire District Council will not only continue its four-day week but also keep tracking the results. This trial is the latest to show promising results, but so far, such studies have been relatively short-term. Even though this ran for multiple years, what happens five or ten years down the road will be worth considering.

Not that everything can be captured in surveys or figures — the extra time spent with family, the benefits of people getting faster responses from council, and so on. And it’s not just benefits that may slip through the net, but perhaps some downsides too.

Regardless, it’s clear this four-day work week “experiment” wasn’t a waste of taxpayer funds but money well spent — anything that keeps bins collected on time is worth the effort.

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