WG working group wants a four-day week

A WELSH GOVERNMENT “Working Group” has recommended piloting a four-day working week.

The working group endorses a twenty per cent reduction in hours for full- time- equivalent workers but no loss of pay.

The working group, a sub-committee of the Workforce Partnership Council, contained no private sector representatives.

The Workforce Partnership Council similarly excludes private sector involvement.

A l though representatives of public sector trade unions, such as the PCS and Unison, favour introducing a four- day week, such a move would significantly increase wage costs at a time when public sector budgets are undergoing a massive squeeze.

A trial that permitted only administrative staff to work four days at full pay instead of five would still need administrative staff present on other days. If the provision were extended to clinical staff in the NHS, it would create even greater chaos in the Welsh NHS than already exists.

However, despite the gross and ongoing shortage of fully qualified clinical staff in the Welsh NHS, the Working Group says that an approach which reserved the four- day option solely for administrative staff would provide little evidence of scalability to wider working environments.

Moreover, there is a risk that such an approach could be divisive.

One member of the Working Group said implementing a four- day week in their organisation would require the recruitment of an additional 179 fulltime equivalent posts to maintain service delivery.

The Working Group did not address where extra staff would come from or how the magic money tree in Cardiff Bay would fund either a pilot or its wider rollout.

Joel James MS, Shadow Minister for Social Partnership, said: “The major problem of the four- day working week is that it cannot be rolled out across every sector. A four- day week will create a two- tier working environment, with office- based public sector workers obtaining a privilege that most private sector workers and many frontline public sector workers cannot enjoy.

“By introducing a four-day working week, the Labour Welsh Government would effectively reduce the hours worked by the public sector for the same pay. That is not the same as many fourday working trials in the private sector, which have simply allowed workers to work the same hours over four days instead of five days.

“The Welsh Conservatives propose that the same benefits of a four- day working week can be obtained by increasing workers’ flexibility to take time off to balance family life and other commitments.”