Leeds City Council: Idea of four-day working week ruled out

The issue was raised at a scrutiny board meeting earlier this week

A council has decided against introducing a four-day working week for staff.

Leeds City Council's head of human resources Andy Dodman said the idea was not being "actively pursued".

The concept is being trialled at councils in South Cambridgeshire and Wales, as well as in other industries.

However, Mr Dodman ruled out any immediate prospect of following suit, but said post-pandemic flexible working had gone down well with staff.

The issue was raised by Liberal Democrat councillor Diane Chapman at a scrutiny board meeting earlier this week.

She suggested a four-day week might reduce work-related stress, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

In response, Mr Dodman said: "We have briefly looked at this.

"Colleagues will be aware there's a couple of local authorities that have piloted it over the last year or so.

"We're not actively pursuing a four-day week here in Leeds."

However, he said: "Colleagues will know that during the Covid period and thereafter, we did introduce fairly robust hybrid working principles, which have built in flexibility in the workplace."

Mr Dodman said the move had allowed staff to work in a different way while still getting their jobs done.

He added: "From the outcome of the staff survey and anecdotally, we know that's working well. There's more to do, and we recently refreshed those hybrid working principles, based on feedback from staff.

"Our approach at the moment is to focus on that and see where that takes us over the next six months."

South Cambridgeshire District Council announced it was to trial a four-day working week for office-based staff last year.

It said it was in response to staff shortages and changes to workers' post-pandemic work-life priorities.