A rightwing lobby group that doesn’t declare its donors is spearheading a campaign to undermine the spread of the four-day week in the UK.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has emerged as a key influence behind ministerial attempts in the last week to try to shut down the first public sector trial of compressed working hours at South Cambridgeshire district council (SCDC).
There are signs of a town hall fightback, with shorter hours now poised to be introduced in neighbouring Cambridge city council, and eight other English councils said to be considering testing the approach. Glasgow city council said it was monitoring pilot programmes and described the four-day working week as “an aspirational position”.
Dozens of private companies have successfully trialled the working pattern, and councils regard it as a solution to acute recruitment and retention problems that nine out of 10 councils say they face.
The levelling up, housing and communities secretary, Michael Gove, told council leaders this week he believed “very strongly” that taxpayers “need to have people working a full five-day week”.
The TPA, which claims to be a grassroots organisation and is part of a global alliance of free-market advocacy groups known as the Atlas Network, is running a “Stop the clock off” campaign against the four-day week.
Advocates of the working pattern – 100% of the work done in 80% of the time for 100% pay – claim the shorter working week boosts productivity, public health and builds a society “where we work to live, rather than live to work”.
But the TPA claims the day off amounts to a free holiday and says that is “simply unacceptable” in the public sector.
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This week, the Guardian reported that shortened weeks were bleeding into schooling, with teachers reporting many fewer pupils attending on Fridays.
The TPA has previously been funded by US-based donors, and others it does not name because “many people do not like to talk about or broadcast their political views”.
The former chief executive, Matthew Elliott, went on to run the Vote Leave campaign. The TPA has campaigned against socialism (which it says “destroys freedom”), for the abolition of inheritance tax, and to scrap the BBC licence fee.
In the House of Commons in May, the Conservative MP Anthony Browne quoted the TPA’s claim that a four-day week in the public sector could cost £30bn a year in lost time. The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said he was “disappointed” in the SCDC and urged IT “to reconsider its decision”, saying residents “deserve better”.
Last weekend, the local government minister Lee Rowley told SCDC to “end your experiment immediately” and claimed it could be in breach of the council’s legal duties to achieve “best value”. He thanked the TPA for its work on the issue.
“Claims that services have improved barely stand up to scrutiny, while savings have been exaggerated at best,”…
2023-07-07 09:07:40
Source from www.theguardian.com