Lib Dem South Cambridgeshire sticks to its guns on four-day working week trial

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Congratulations to Bridget Smith, the Liberal Democrat leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, for standing up to the government over the authority's trial of a four-day working week.

BBC News reports that last week the local government minister Lee Rowley

wrote to the district council calling for the trial to stop and expressed concern about its impact on local taxpayers.

He said the council's approach could breach its legal duties under the Local Government Act, and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities would "shortly be issuing clear guidance".

But the council is not stopping the trial but extending it. In September he crews of its refuse vehicles will be able to join the trial.

Bridget Smith told BBC News:

"This is a trial, but we have already seen strong independently assessed evidence which showed that performance was maintained, and in some cases improved, in the first three months.

"As time goes on, it is becoming increasingly clear that recruitment has been positively affected, both in terms of the quality and number of applicants, and the consequent success in filling vacant posts."

Rowley's intervention fits a pattern of Conservative ministers trying to cause problems for local Lib Dem councils rather than working with them - see Neil O'Brien's attitude towards Oadby and Wigston.

And it fits the pattern of Conservatives opposing anything they think involves being 'soft' on council workers, even when there are clear benefits to the authority or the public. 

When I was a Harborough councillor we brought in flexitime, which was opposed by most Conservative members even though it enabled us to open the council offices at lunchtime.

I'm also pleased to see ideas like the four-day week and basic income tried out, because politics offers so little hope of a better world these days. A little bit of utopianism does us no harm.