A Cambridgeshire council that fell out with the last Conservative government over its implementation of a 4-day week, is celebrating today after Labour removed a ‘best value notice’.
Max Soule Deputy Director, Local Government Stewardship and Intervention at the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, told South Cambridgeshire District Council, that the notice expired today and would not be reissued.
“As you know, the department reissued a Best Value Notice (“Notice”) to South Cambridgeshire on 8 May 2024 as a formal notification that we had ongoing concerns regarding the authority and requesting that the council engages with the department to provide further assurance of improvement,” wrote Mr Soule.
“We recognise the council’s constructive engagement with the department throughout the period of the Notices, including your cooperation with the request for data about the impacts of the four day working week trial.
“As the Deputy Prime Minister set out in her letter to local authority leaders on 16 July and reiterated on 24 October at the Local Government Association conference, this government is committed to working as partners in power, with mutual respect underpinning our approach.”
Mr Soule added: “This means an end to micromanaging local authorities.
“Although it is not government policy to support a general move to a four-day working week for five days’ worth of pay, we recognise that local authorities are independent employers who are rightly responsible for the management and organisation of their own workforces.
“We encourage active and ongoing dialogue with the workforce and trade unions on any changes to local working arrangements.
“In turn, local voters are best placed to make decisions about the effectiveness of local authority services in their own areas.
“With this in mind, the Notice will not be reissued. It is important to ensure transparency in relation to these matters and a copy of this letter will be published on GOV.UK, in line with the Best Value Notices previously issued to the council.
“I encourage you to make a copy of this letter available on the council’s website, and to share it with full council and the audit and governance committee. We will notify your external auditor of our decision.”
A Best Value Notice was issued to the Council on 3 November 2023 for a period of six months.
This Notice requested that the Council end the four-day week trial or commit to ongoing weekly submission of performance data with a one-week response period, and for retrospective data for the previous five years (with a one month response period).
Councillors voted to comply with the data request at an extraordinary meeting on 20 November 2023.
The council received a second Best Value Notice from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on Wednesday 8 May 2024. This extended the Notice for a further six months.
On Friday 8 November 2024, the Government’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government wrote to the Council to say that the Best Value Notice had expired and would not be reissued.
BACKGROUND TO BEST VALUE NOTICE
In November 2023, South Cambridgeshire District Councillors agreed the council would answer up to 80 questions totalling 186 individual requests from Government every week, as a four-day week trial continues.
An Extraordinary Council Meeting was held 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 were issued to three other local government bodies in 2023 – but for concerns such as an unrealistic budget, significant governance weaknesses and major cultural problems.
A three-month trial of a four-day week for desk-based staff began in January 2023 as the council tried to address critical recruitment and retention issues facing local government. These issues are particularly acute in South Cambridgeshire due to the strength of the local economy and high cost of living.
Following independent analysis which showed performance was generally maintained, with nine areas showing substantial improvement on the previous year, that trial was extended until the end of March 2024 to assess recruitment and retention benefits over a longer term.
The council said it had maintained its full opening hours, so they are at least the same as before the trial, and now stays open to the public later on Wednesdays.
The Best Value Notice requested 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.
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.
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.”
Before announcing the four-day week trial, the council 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. This bill could be halved if all the agency posts were filled permanently.
Data provided during the Best Value process – background provided by South Cambridgeshire District Council
During the period of the Best Value Notice, data requests were made via the Government’s online portal, called DELTA. The council input data into the portal to be submitted. Data included figures, uploaded files, and notes.
After considering five sets of weekly data and the retrospective data, Local Government Minster at the time, Simon Hoare MP, decided to expand the initial data request and revise some previous questions.
Government issued notice of this request on 29 December 2023; this added new data sets and replaced some previously requested data. This applied to weekly data (requested back to week one and applicable to future weeks) and to retrospective data. The request had a two-week deadline.
All available data has been provided. Explanations have been given where data does not exist or cannot be extracted. Where data could not for technical reasons be provided weekly and could be provided monthly, that data was submitted as soon as possible.
