Liberal Democrats at South Cambridgeshire District Council have released the data on their four-day working week trial early, following pressure from their opponents.

Conservative councillors in the district say they have been fighting a "long, hard battle" to gain access to the trial data.

Since January 2023, the Lib Dem administration has been operating a four-day working week trial for more than 470 desk-based staff.

Conservatives have accused them of using £3.3 million of taxpayers' money in order to do this, although the Lib Dems have said this number is "without a clear source" and "has no basis in reality".

Cllr Heather Williams, leader of the South Cambs Conservative group, said: "I am pleased that our efforts to get this information in the public domain have been successful.

"It is a sad time, however, for those of us at the council who have had to fight so hard for something which should be a basic transparency issue.

"It feels more and more a battle for information, a battle to be able to hold the administration to account, and a battle to maintain the fundamental right to information in order to do your job representing residents.

"I hope that because of the actions we have taken, the Lib Dems will think twice before trying to withhold information from councillors and the public again."

The data was originally planned to be released in March, at the end of the trial period.

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A Lib Dem spokesman said: "This we viewed as preferable to drip releasing the data, which would involve significant amounts of officers’ time to compile and format it into a useable format for publication.

"We naturally took the view that officers’ time would be best spent working for the residents of South Cambridgeshire in so many other ways.

"We are proud of the council’s performance data and whilst we are careful not to draw conclusions regarding the four-day week trial, initial evidence suggests that it is benefitting the council, with key performance indicators (KPIs) demonstrating no statistically significant negative impact of the trial, and indeed in a number of areas KPIs indicated an improvement in productivity."