A minister has slapped down civil servants demanding a four-day week, telling them “we are not living in the 1970”.
After members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) said working a four-day week is “critical to attaining a good quality of life” and could help save the government more than £21 million a year, pensions minister Emma Reynolds ruled out the change.
“I don’t believe them,” she told Times Radio.
Officials in the in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) estimate claim the arrangement would more than halve staff turnover and free up money to hire an extra 2,345 workers .
The PCS, which represents civil servants and carried out the research, said it showed sickness absence could also drop from 4.3 average working days lost per staffer each year to 1.5 days.
But Ms Reynolds brushed off the union’s calls, saying: “I see the benefit for those who want to have the flexibility to be able to work part time. I'm a mum of two young children. And you know, sometimes I wish that I worked part time. But I don't think as a whole that civil servants as a general rule should work four days rather than five."
She added that civil servants wanting a four-day week “wont get one... because we are not living in the 1970s”.
PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote hit back, saying: "No, we’re not. We’re living in the 2020s and we’ve moved on from then and adopted smarter working practices.”
Ms Reynolds’ rebuke is another stark reminder of the change in Labour under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. The party’s 2019 manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn committed to “tackling excessive working hours”, shifting to a four-day or 32-hour week within a decade with no loss of pay.
And the four-day week campaign said Ms Reynolds sounds more like “a Tory minister stuck in the past”.
Director Joe Ryle added: “The truth is that the 9-5, 5 day working week is outdated and no longer fit for purpose. It was invented 100 years ago and we are long overdue an update.
“As hundreds of British companies and one local council have already shown, a four-day week with no loss of pay can be a win-win for both workers and employers.”
Whitehall officials are campaigning for Defra to carry out a pilot four-day week scheme within the department so that managers can assess the arrangement.
Statisticians within the department who are members of the PCS say the Government could save £21.4 million from the move.
That figure is based on Institute for Government modelling of the year 2016-17 and updated to reflect a rise in salaries, staff numbers and turnover since then.
In a survey of more than 1,200 members carried out by the PCS as part of its research, 80% of respondents said the change would give them health and wellbeing benefits.
General secretary Fran Heathcote said the study suggested any opposition to employees working a four-day week was “purely ideological” because the arrangement has “financial benefits too.”
“Why else would an employer stand in the way of progress?” she said.
Our members are resolute in their belief that a four-day week is critical to attaining a good quality of life
“Our members are resolute in their belief that a four-day week is critical to attaining a good quality of life, improving their health and wellbeing and helping them to meet caring responsibilities, while all the time increasing their productivity.”
Director of the 4-Day Week Campaign Joe Ryle, who wrote a foreword to the research, said the “time has come” to trial the arrangement in Whitehall.
“As hundreds of British companies in the private sector have already shown, a four-day week with no loss of pay can be a win-win for both workers and employers,” he said.
The Government last week dropped official concerns about South Cambridgeshire District Council’s four-day week after the authority faced opposition from the previous Tory administration.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Kemi Badenoch attacked Sir Keir Starmer over the move, asking him: “If he is going to bail out the public sector then can he tell us this: does he think it is appropriate – as the Ministry for Housing has done – to approve a four-day week for councils that is not flexible working but is actually part-time work for full-time pay?”
Sir Keir replied: “Questions based on what we’re actually doing are usually better than fantasy questions made up.
“What did they deliver in 14 years? Low growth, a stagnant economy, a disastrous mini-budget, a £22 billion black hole and now she wants to give me advice on running the economy?
“I don’t want to be rude but no thank you very much.”
A Defra spokeswoman said there were no plans for a four-day week.
