South Cambridgeshire council boss secretly working on university thesis on ... trends now
View
comments
The boss of the first town hall to introduce a four-day week is secretly working on a university thesis on the topic, it can be revealed.
South Cambridgeshire district council and its chief executive Liz Watts were hailed for the trial of staff working fewer hours on full pay.
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.
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.
It comes ahead of a crucial meeting tomorrow where councillors – who were unaware of Ms Watts’s academic work – will decide whether or not to extend the four-day week pilot for another year and include it to cover binmen and caretakers in addition to office staff.
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
As the Mail told today, the council insists the system is working well but its own reports show that targets have been missed, councillors find it impossible to get hold of officials on Mondays and Fridays and even junior staff say they are not getting the training or supervision they need.
Anthony Browne, Conservative MP for South Cambridgeshire, told the Mail: ‘The residents of South Cambs will be shocked that they have secretly been turned into guinea pigs for an ideological experiment for
