Mr. Andrew Barnes:

The Deputy is correct. As he said, in some areas, and childcare is one, you will have to bring in more staff. I do not dispute that. One of the things we are talking about here is understanding what output is as opposed to the amount of time spent. The Deputy used the example of education. A number of American education districts introduced a four-day week as a consequence of certain issues last year and found the children's education standards improved by reducing the number of hours they were taught. They also found they could bring in teachers and get better teachers, and because they were bringing in better teachers or attracting people to the profession, the quality of the teaching went up.

There will always be exceptions that prove the rule, but we are trying to argue that we should rethink radically how we work and what it is we are trying to do so we are focused on the outcomes and not the time we spend. That is what we should be focusing on. If we can get better outcomes, why is it we assume a five-day week, brought in for repetitive, manufacturing processes in the 1920s, is the way to deliver the best outcomes in the 21st century when we are largely not doing that? It is a difficult point to understand how we find that. My question when I went to my staff was, quite simply, "Tell me how I should judge you; how will you get better productivity?" That was the start of the conversation.