Embargoed: 00:01, Thursday 10th July 2025
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The TaxPayers’ Alliance announces “final push” to stop four-day week in South Cambridgeshire.
- South Cambridgeshire District Council to hold a final vote to make the four-day week permanent on the 17th July 2025 after residents expressed opposition in consultation.
- Letter-writing tool will enable residents to write to their councillor expressing opposition, with the TPA team targeting Lib Dem marginal wards in the ground campaign.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance, a campaign group, is today (10th July) announcing a final bid to stop the four-day week experiment against South Cambridgeshire District Council. This comes a week before the council will vote on whether to make the four-day week permanent, with a meeting of the full council scheduled for the 17th July.
Ahead of the vote the TaxPayers’ Alliance is launching a new write to your councillor tool allowing residents to demand their local representative vote against the four-day week. The group will be campaigning on the ground targeting a number of Lib Dem marginals, including Cambourne. This follows the extraordinary success of its consultation tool, which saw 221 residents submit to the consultation on the four-day week, over one fifth of total responses. The tool will only be accessible by people with postcodes in South Cambridgeshire.
In January 2023, South Cambridgeshire District Council started trialling a four-day working week, in what was supposed to be a three month trial but has now been going on for two and a half years without a vote by local councillors. Under the scheme, staff were given an extra day off per week with no loss of pay. The council ran a public consultation earlier this year, which claimed improvements, including on agency spend, applications to fill vacancies and staff wellbeing.
However, residents and businesses slammed the council in survey responses. In the residents survey, nine services have experienced a decline in satisfaction, while four service areas have shown no improvement. Not a single survey saw an improvement in satisfaction from residents. These services include bin collections, the council tax service, and the customer contact centre. The business survey likewise saw not a single service report an improvement in satisfaction levels of the ten asked about.
Since the beginning of the trial, the TaxPayers’ Alliance has been leading opposition to the scheme, revealing that the council made misleading claims in their reports about reduced agency staff, filling vacancies and also removed negative comments from the Cambridge University report into the four-day week trial.
Elliot Keck, head of campaigns of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said:
“South Cambridgeshire’s radical four-day week experiment has dragged on long enough, with residents sick of being sidelined while services slip.
"We at the TPA will be making one final push to try and ensure the administration can’t just show the middle finger to their residents and push this through despite the huge public anger.
“This vote is a moment of reckoning. Councillors must decide whether they stand with the officials pushing a cushy deal for themselves, or with the taxpayers who are footing the bill.”
TPA spokespeople are available for live and pre-recorded broadcast interviews via 07795 084 113 (no texts)
Media contact:
Elliot Keck
Head of Campaigns, TaxPayers' Alliance
[email protected]
24-hour media hotline: 07795 084 113 (no texts)
Notes to editors:
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Founded in 2004 by Matthew Elliott and Andrew Allum, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) campaigns to reform taxes and public services, cut waste and speak up for British taxpayers. Find out more at www.taxpayersalliance.com.
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TaxPayers' Alliance's research council.
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The full response to the council’s four-day week trial came out at 10 am on Friday, 4th July and is available here.
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The TPA have been leading campaigners against the four-day week and organised the submission of hundreds of responses to the consultation when it was open earlier this year, with this campaign being highlighted in the public consultation report.
- A timeline of the four-day week trial has been produced by the TaxPayers’ Alliance and can be found here.