Revealed: Boss of South Cambridgeshire council edited ‘independent’ report to remove negative comments about trial of a four-day week
A council boss intervened to remove negative comments from a Cambridge University report into the four-day week trial, it can be revealed.
Liz Watts, chief executive of South Cambridgeshire District Council, made a series of key edits to the supposedly independent analysis by academics at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.
Both the Council and the Institute say that the changes were ‘clarifications’ and not intended to reduce criticism of the trial, but the intervention has drawn criticism locally.
Ms Watts deleted one remark by a town hall manager admitting that the experiment in giving their team a three-day weekend had a ‘negative impact on my wellbeing’ until they realised ‘we don’t always have to deliver perfect work’.
Other changes she made included removing claims that staff who worked on Fridays ‘had it easy’ and ‘got very little done’.
South Cambridgeshire district council chief executive Liz Watts (pictured) is secretly working on a university thesis about the four-day working week, it can be revealed. But neither she nor the Lib Dem-run local authority has ever disclosed that she has spent the past three years studying for a PhD about the four-day working week
And she also edited out a complaint by a councillor that they were left with ‘more work’ because officials were failing to respond to their messages.
Ms Watts’ actions emerged after a draft copy of the report, including her suggested changes and comments, was requested from the town hall by independent councillor Dan Lentell.
She has already come under scrutiny in the controversy over the four-day week trial after the Mail revealed that she was carrying out a PhD on the topic yet failed to publicly declare the potential conflict of interest.
It will put the local authority under fresh pressure to comply by ministers’ demands and end the project.
Last night independent councillor Daniel Lentell said: ‘The chief executive has not declared a massive conflict of interest contrary to the spirit and letter of the rules.
‘Now we find out she tampered with what was presented to us councillors as an independent report.
‘This is a pattern of bad behaviour that should not be tolerated in a democratic organisation where accountability is valued.’
Local MP Anthony Browne added: ‘The sleaze at SCDC has now dragged the name of one of Britain’s great institutions through the mud.
‘Before their reputation for independent research is damaged further, the University should investigate the full impact of allowing its report to be doctored by South Cambs.’
And Elliot Keck, head of campaigns at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘South Cambridgeshire’s boss has been caught red-handed manipulating a report into her town hall’s failing experiment. It’s time to end this bonkers trial and get staff back working full-time.’
The final report published by the Bennett Institute in May said feedback from an initial three-month trial of the four-day working week at South Cambridgeshire had been ‘mostly positive’.
But the draft report shows that Ms Watts made at least eight changes to remove negative comments.
One quote from a manager she deleted stated: ‘At the beginning of the trial I was a control freak, and I did all the unfinished work on my day off so that my team could have time off. This had a very negative impact on my well-being.’
The manager said she had then ‘turned a corner’ and let her team make decisions for themselves, adding: ‘We don’t always have to deliver perfect work and that’s OK.’
Ms Watts is now facing calls to quit over the potential conflict of interest after being accused of treating staff and residents as guinea pigs for her research at the University of the West of England (pictured)
A remark that the new way of working would help staff ‘avoid redundancy’ was changed to say ‘optimise productivity’.
A long section about how the scheme worked in practice was also removed, including the observation that ‘since Friday is a quieter working day, the team that has Monday off usually gets very little done on that day’.
A lengthy complaint from a councillor was removed which stated: ‘I have emailed some people at least three times and received no response, either none at all or I get an out of office notification.’
A source claimed that this comment was removed as the author had not consented to its inclusion, and said that a positive comment was deleted for the same reason.
A South Cambridgeshire District Council spokesman said: ‘The clarifications suggested on the draft report were for three reasons.
‘They made some confusing language clearer as the researcher is not a native English speaker, to remove individual member quotes which the Council did not have permission to include in the report, and for brevity.’
Source: Read Full Article