1.4 million people now work in local government (accounting for 5% of the total UK workforce). With wages and salaries a major cost centre for Councils, at a time of unprecedented pressure on budgets and services, local authorities are keen to find ways of increasing the efficiency of their workforce.

To help Councils in that aim, Timewise today launches the Timewise Council accreditation scheme, by announcing Camden Council as the UK's first local authority to achieve ‘Timewise' status.

Timewise has been working closely with Camden Council over the past 6 months to co-design a programme to transform flexible working practices by focusing on continual improvement, cultural change across the Council's workforce and shared learning with external stakeholders. 

The Timewise Council award signifies that a local authority is driving change in flexible working practices for their own workforce and across their wider community.

It is intended to help Councils attract and retain the talent they need and to develop more agile and efficient services, while also stimulating flexibility in the local jobs market by sharing learning, influencing suppliers and local employers. 

Another strand develops services that help workless residents find work that fits with caring responsibilities and raise their living standards, building on the social principles behind the Living Wage.

The criteria for Timewise Council status starts with the Council's own workforce, as this is where they have most control and can have the most impact. Traditional patterns of work are changing as a response to demographic changes in the workforce and advances in technology that allow employers to optimise office space, make better use of hot-desking and remote working.

These changes mean that, in the future, flexible working will be the norm rather than the exception. Already a quarter of the UK's entire workforce (8 million people) work 30 hours a week or less, with many more having ‘informal' flexibility, such as occasional home working.

Flexible working could help Councils save millions of pounds annually through reducing the reliance on agency workers to fill gaps in permanent staffing, or improve retention rates in services such as social care where women make up a large part of the workforce and where experience is often lost once they need to begin fitting work around caring for their own families.

Barriers to flexible working are also a cause of the lack of women in senior roles as they often drop off the career ladder after a break from work, which also means employers struggle to fill manager and specialist vacancies; a joint study from the CIPD and recruiter Hays found that nearly one in five employers reported a real challenge in attracting strong enough candidates

The Timewise Council programme also provides an opportunity to rethink approaches to economic regeneration, in the same way that the London Living Wage showed how local authorities can act as a catalyst for change among other employers by taking a leadership role.

To achieve Timewise Council status, a local authority needs to consider how it can influence employers to rebalance the labour market in favour of parents, carers and people with disabilities, while also supporting working people to access better quality flexible and part time jobs.

The result of this co-ordinated approach is better living standards for families, greater gender equality and less child poverty.

Timewise Councils builds on a decade of learning by Emma Stewart and her colleagues, that has included providing training and advice on flexibility to many of the UK's leading employers. This approach has been endorsed by the Confederation of British Industry, the Chartered Institute for Professional Development, the Cabinet Office and policy bodies like the Resolution Foundation, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Knowing these objectives chimed with Camden LBC's strategic priorities, and that they could help implement the findings of its Equality Taskforce, Emma Stewart last year approached Camden's Leader, Cllr Sarah Hayward, and found her to be a passionate supporter of the Timewise Council concept.

Although Camden has a vibrant business economy, 37% of local mothers are workless, a rate that is higher than both the London and UK averages.

Together they began designing the basis for an improvement plan that enabled Camden to set ambitious but practical goals in a realistic timeframe, and this became the framework that is now being offered to other Councils as the basis for achieving Timewise Council status.

Becoming the first ever Timewise Council thus forms part of Camden's wider pledge through its Camden Plan to create the conditions for and harness the benefits of economic growth to ensure everybody has the chance to succeed.

Six months after that first approach, there is visible change within Camden's workforce. Camden made a cabinet resolution to encourage flexible working requests as part of all job adverts and has met all the requests made by applicants – part of Camden's improvement plan is to increase the number of these requests and ensure managers have the confidence to say yes unless there is strong business reason against.

It is also realising its role as an influencer of wider change through back-to-work support service specifically to address the needs of mothers and including information on flexible working and social value into procurement guidance for its suppliers.

Six months after that first approach, there is visible change within Camden's workforce. Camden made a cabinet resolution to encourage flexible working and takes requests for such working into account as part of all job adverts.

Where such requests have been made since implementation, all have been accepted. It is Camden's intention to increase the number of these requests and ensure managers have the confidence to say yes when they are reasonable.

It is also realising its role as an influencer of wider change through back-to-work support service specifically to address the needs of mothers and including information on flexible working and social value into procurement guidance for its suppliers.