In the largest public sector trial of the four-day week in Britain, fewer refuse collectors quit and there were faster planning decisions, more rapid benefits processing and quicker call answering, independent research has found.
South Cambridgeshire district council’s controversial experiment with a shorter working week resulted in improvements in performance in 11 out of 24 areas, little or no change in 11 areas and worsening of performance in two areas, according to analysis of productivity before and during the 15-month trial by academics at the universities of Cambridge and Salford.
