Waste crews in Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire are set to start a four-day week trial this September.

Cambridge City Council has agreed to support the trial for bin collectors, which is being spearheaded by South Cambridgeshire District Council.

The two authorities share some services, including planning and waste collection.

A four-day week trial for desk-based staff was previously launched by the district council in January, and has been extended until March next year.

The trial was set up by the authority to see if it will help it to recruit new staff and to keep existing staff.

However, the trial has faced backlash, including from Lee Rowley, Minister for Local Government, who wrote to the district council earlier this week calling for the trial to be stopped.

The leader of the district council, Councillor Bridget Smith, said she was “surprised” to receive the letter and said she had requested a meeting to discuss the situation.

An officer told councillors at a meeting of the city council’s strategy and resources scrutiny committee this week (July 3) that the potential of a four-day week had already helped recruitment in the shared waste service.

Councillor Rosy Moore, the executive councillor for environment, climate change and biodiversity, said that as well as helping with recruitment, the authorities hoped the trial would also help reduce sickness levels in the “physically demanding” job.

The four-day week trial is being implemented at the same time as ‘route optimisation’ work, taking into account new housing that has been built across the two council areas.

Councillor Tim Bick said he had some concerns about these things being done at the same time.

He said on previous occasions there had been bins missed as the new routes were implemented, causing some complaints.

Cllr Bick said trying to do both the trial and route optimisation at the same time could cause the “same scenario going to be blamed on the four-day week rather than route optimisation”.

Cllr Moore said it made more sense for both things to be done at the same time, as she said implementing them separately could lead to multiple bin collection day changes for some people.

She added that the last route optimisation was “challenging”, but said that had been due to there being “big changes” needed at the time.

Cllr Bick also asked if there was a “smooth route back” to a five-day week, if the four-day week trial did not work as hoped.

An officer explained that route optimisation work had been done on the basis of a five-day week. They said they would not be starting from scratch, but would need to develop more detailed routes.

Councillor Naomi Bennett said she believed there would be some positives from the trial, including losing the confusion caused by bin collection changes following a Bank Holiday Monday.

Councillor Cameron Holloway asked whether three months would be long enough to see the full impacts of the four-day week.

An officer explained that while it would not be long enough to see the full impact on areas such as staff wellbeing, he said it would be long enough to see if it worked and was going in the right direction.

Councillor Richard Robertson highlighted that under the trial the waste crews would have to work an extra two hours a week, which the desk-based staff were not required to do.

The officer confirmed the current trial for waste crews would see them working a 32-hour week rather than a 30-hour week, but said this would have to be equalised with desk-based staff at some point.

The committee members unanimously agreed to support the trial. The district council approved the trial back in May.