The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has opted not to lift special measures imposed on an English council over its trial of four-day-week working, it has emerged.
South Cambridgeshire District Council was issued with a so-called Best Value Notice over the project in November 2023 after the authority rejected the then-government's requests for the trial to be ended. A new notice was imposed in May, which is due to run until November.
After July's general election, council leader Bridget Smith wrote to the new leadership at MHCLG calling for the special-measures regime related to the current Best Value Notice to be ended "immediately". She cited an "overwhelmingly positive" analysis of the trial conducted by researchers from Cambridge University and the University of Salford.
Smith said the Liberal Democrat-led authority believed the previous Conservative government had "an ideological intolerance of councils trying to address serious recruitment and retention issues with innovative trials of working practices".
She also asked the new government to distance itself from a warning to councils issued by former communities secretary Michael Gove, "threatening that future funding settlements could be adversely affected for councils operating a four day week".
This week, MHCLG confirmed that Best Value Notices for three English authorities were not being renewed at expiry. But the notice that South Cambridgeshire is subject to remains in force – meaning Smith's request for an immediate cessation of special measures was not successful. However MHCLG could still choose not to renew the notice in November.
Four other English authorities are also still subject to live Best Value Notices.
The provisions of South Cambridgeshire's current Best Value Notice require it to submit around 200 datasets to MHCLG for monitoring. The notice states that special measures associated with the regime may be "withdrawn or escalated at any point based on the available evidence".
In her letter to MHCLG, Smith said South Cambridgeshire had complied with the regime, but had never been given any feedback or "serious explanation" of why the Best Value Notices had been issued. "It is clear that the trial has been successful," Smith wrote. "Our only final task in analysis of the trial is to undertake a consultation. This is good practice and a necessary step in order for the council to take an informed decision about whether to make the trial arrangements permanent."
Although the formal trial concluded in March, four-day working has continued at South Cambridgeshire without a long-term decision to continue it being made. The authority said the previous government's threats of using financial levers to punish councils that introduced four-day working was an obstacle to launching a consultation ahead of formally adopting four-day-week working.
The academic analysis of the programme found four-day working had reduced staff turnover, saving hundreds of thousands of pounds in a year, and improved staff wellbeing and service delivery.
Out of 24 key performance areas monitored, just two had declined: housing rent collections and the number of average days required to re-let housing stock.
Last month, Civil Service World asked MHCLG for its response to Smith's letter. It failed to provide one ahead of the publication deadline – despite being given the best part of a day to do so.
It subsequently issued an ambiguous "briefing" note reading: "This is not government policy. Local voters will make their own judgements on the effectiveness of council services in their own areas."
MHCLG failed to clarify whether "this is not government policy" referred to supporting four-day-week working at councils or intervening to discourage local four-day week initiatives.
CSW today asked MHCLG for comment on the Best Value Notice at SCDC. None had been received at the time of publication.