We agree, we really should be getting excited about this four-day week thing

This strikes us as a little unfair:

Wales has plenty of genuine problems it should be fixing. Instead it is embarking on a series of half-baked socialist experiments that are doomed to inevitably fail.

Certainly this is when we consider this plan:

Last week, Wales's “Future Generations Commissioner” (nope, don't ask me why as-yet-unborn Welsh children need a no doubt generously paid commissioner to look after them, I haven’t the foggiest) published a report arguing a four-day week should be the norm.

Sophie Howe suggests that the public sector should move to a four-day week to start with, and after that it could spread to what little remains of private industry.

We do agree that there can be problems in government, the state, running an economy for a population of 3.1 million. Observing national politics does not tell us that actual ability at running things is common. So, the talent that will rise up out of a 3.1 million pool is not - necessarily at least - going to be of such stellar quality that we’d want to hand over management of everything to them.

Perhaps this is why those who have so risen haven’t quite understood the issue under discussion.

The basic idea of working time falling as the society becomes richer, yes, of course. This has been happening for a couple of centuries now and we see no reason for it to stop. A richer population will take some of those greater riches as more leisure. We do insist that everyone has to grasp that this includes unpaid work in the household as well as paid work in the marketplace though. The truly massive workload drop of the 20th century took place as we automated that household. But once that’s done then yes, less work, more leisure, lead on!

Even so, there is significant misunderstanding here. The let’s all go do this urge in government these days is being fed by the Icelandic experience. A report on which is here.

Output remained static while working hours fell 10%. OK. But why did this happen?

To be able to work less while providing the same level of service, changes in the organisation of work therefore had to be implemented. Most commonly, this was done by rethinking how tasks were completed: shortening meetings, cutting out unnecessary tasks, and shifts arrangements

So the actual finding was that if the bureaucracy pulled their thumbs out they could do the work with 10% less labour. Which produces some interesting options for us. Most obviously, instead of each bureaucrat working 10% fewer hours it might be possible to have, instead, 10% fewer bureaucrats. Along with a 10% reduction in the tax bill necessary to support the bureaucracy.

For the maintenance of output wasn’t, in fact, because all workers were so joyous at having the time off. It was that the shock to the system allowed the identification of how working practices could be improved. It’s the shock that mattered, not the length of the work-week.

Which is a much more interesting finding than the one usually assumed. It also leads to possibly interesting plans for Wales other than that insistence upon the four-day week.

But, you know, that does depend upon that Welsh talent pool producing those who can understand the reports they’re using to guide their policies. Here’s hoping….