The scourge of the four-day working week in the public sector is getting a serious grip on the country and it is taxpayers who will once again be losing out. Campaigners and unions now want schools in England and Wales to pilot being open four days a week, instead of five, and parents are rightly kicking off.
This latest development is hot on the heels of a recent decision by South Cambridgeshire District Council to allow their staff to work four days a week but still receive pay for a five-day week. Following a trial that lasted two-and-a-half years, and in spite of declining performance in several key areas, the Liberal Democrat-controlled council finally decided to adopt this as a permanent policy earlier this year.
Predictably, there are now rumblings from other councils around the country who wish to follow suit. Supporters say there really should not be any objections if the same amount of work is being done and service standards are being maintained.
But taxpayers should not just accept the line that services are just being maintained, we should be pushing for services to be improved and it is hard to see how they can be if staff are working less time in a week. There is always room for improvement as you will know if you have ever dealt with your local council regarding any issue.
Councils aside; the decision by the 4 Day Week Foundation to write to Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, asking for schools to be able to pilot a four-day working week or to “test alternative schedules” as they put it, has ramifications that will hit working parents, guardians and grandparents hard. A cursory glance at any of the online parenting forums lays bare the impact any such pilots would have.
Childcare costs in the UK are already astronomical, and these would only increase if those responsible for a child’s care had to find the cash for an additional day. Roll into this the additional stress of getting a child or children somewhere else for their care in the week and it is already hard-pressed working folk who will be hit the hardest.
One of the main reasons that campaigners are requesting the possibility of a four-day week in schools, is that they say it would help with teacher recruitment and retention. They say such a measure would also help reduce teacher “burnout”.
I am not here to bash teachers, but this latest suggestion will see the patience of taxpayers wearing even thinner given the gold-plated pensions that teachers are entitled to, along with the well above average number of holidaying weeks that most of us can only dream of.
The concept of a four-day working week is becoming a cult in the public sector and needs to be properly challenged. In Scotland, the Scottish government last month outlined proposals for a ‘flexible’ four-day teaching week which would see teachers spending one day a week less in the classroom but instead doing lesson prep or marking.
Whilst this might not seem particularly radical, it does give a clear sense of the direction of travel. It is hard not to see how accepting the premise that people should be able to work less hours for the same amount of money does not push the country into further decline.
For all the promises that standards will not slip and work output will not decline, I have been on this planet long enough to know how human nature works and I am convinced that the reality would be otherwise. To the government’s credit, they have responded to this suggestion and similar petitions to say they have no plans to reduce the school week to four days.
This might offer a crumb of comfort to those of us that find the idea ludicrous, but we can justifiably conclude that this government does not have a good record of not caving into the demands of unions or other self-interested campaigning groups.
Last month’s Budget outlined many more billions being poured into public services without any real commitment to reforming working practices. The growing noise in the public sector about working less days for the same amount of money is out of step with the mood of the nation.
At a time when those of us that work plod on and struggle with rising food and energy bills, along with a record high tax burden, is it any wonder that there is little sympathy for those who want to cut their working week by a fifth and still be paid the same amount of money.
It should certainly not be allowed in our country’s schools or in any organisation that is providing public services to taxpayers in the UK.