English councils free to adopt four-day week after Labour drops Tory concerns

The South Cambridgeshire trial found workers were happier and it was easier to employ permanent workers in ‘hard-to-fill roles’. Photograph: PhotoAlto/Alamy

Councils in England will have the right to adopt a four-day working week after the government dropped concerns raised by the Conservatives when they were in power.

For more than a year, South Cambridgeshire district council has defied Conservative opposition to its policy to introduce a four-day working week, after a controversial 15-month trial indicated in March that the performance of its workers mostly improved or remained the same, while the council simultaneously saved more than £370,000 in a year.