Call to monitor second jobs at four-day week council

Councillor Dan Lentell has raised concerns at the number of four-day week workers taking on second jobs

A council that has implemented a four-day working week has been asked to monitor employees working second jobs on their paid day off.

South Cambridgeshire District Council (SCDC) started a trial in January 2023 where workers do 100% of their work in 80% of their hours - with no reduction in pay.

Independent councillor Dan Lentell has put forward a motion to highlight a survey which revealed that a number of workers had taken on other additional paid work.

But a spokesperson for SCDC said the majority of those with second jobs worked in waste services and already had them before the trial began.

The health and wellbeing survey carried out in 2024 by Robertson Cooper found that 16% of workers had taken on other paid work during their extra day.

This compares with 1% in 2023 when the trial first began, but waste services had not yet taken part.

A spokesperson for SCDC said: "This is not surprising, as we knew that a number of waste colleagues had second jobs prior to the trial, for example an evening cleaning job."

A four-day week trial was introduced for office workers at South Cambridgeshire District Council in January 2023

According to SCDC's website, the purpose of the extra day off was for staff to "recover and re-energise" in preparation for a "more intense" four-day working week.

The authority asked council officers not to take on additional paid work on their non-working day, but instead encouraged them to do things like caring responsibilities, volunteering, and use it for their personal wellbeing.

The majority of staff (50%) said they used their day off for life admin, closely followed by housework (44%).

'Clear guidelines'

Mr Lentell, the ward councillor for Over and Willingham, said he was "massively in favour" of four-day weeks in principle, but thought the trial was "horrifically unfair".

He said: "Ratepayers are mightily cheesed off that they are subsidising council staff."

Mr Lentell's motion, which is being discussed by councillors on 14 January, does not call for a ban on second jobs, but asks the council to introduce "appropriate monitoring and reporting mechanisms".

The motion said there should be "clear guidelines" prohibiting staff from doing other jobs during their paid day off that "could conflict with council duties or undermine public trust".

It also called for an "unequivocal prohibition" on staff using time freed up by the trial to sell their services back to the council.

Research suggested that second jobs were relatively common, with a Royal London survey of 4,000 workers carried out in 2022 stating that 16% of adults in the UK had one.

A further study by SCDC of employees at its Waterbeach waste depot found that of 170 employees surveyed, all of those with second jobs said they had one before the four-day trial.