Was this council’s four-day week experiment really a success?

What a surprise. South Cambridgeshire District Council has declared its controversial experiment with a four day week – which put council staff on a 32 hour rather than 40-hour week with no loss of pay – a tremendous success. The council, whose chief executive Liz Watts was revealed last year to be doing a doctorate on the subject of the four day week as well as her day job, has published the results of a study by the Universities of Salford and Cambridge which claims that the council’s performance improved on 11 measures during the trial period compared with prior performance and decreased on just two measures.

You can read the report for yourself and judge the validity of research which claims to be independent yet is based entirely on performance data collected by the council itself. One of the greatest claimed successes – a reduction in staff turnover – seems to be based on some rather low numbers: an average of two staff per month leaving their council jobs during their trial compared with an average of 2.5