Call to cut hours of parents

The Government today urged businesses to offer shorter working hours and flexible time to make life easier for parents. Trade and Industry minister Alan Johnson claimed that long hours and rigid shifts caused problems of absenteeism, unhappiness and high staff turnover. He called on private-sector employers to bring in imaginative policies "to help staff balance their home and work life more effectively".

The move comes after Suma Chakrabarti, 42, became the first Whitehall mandarin to be offered family-friendly working hours, earning £120,000 for a week limited to 40 hours.

Downing Street said his contract would signal a transformation in the way the civil service treats its top staff. The DTI today announced £5 million in grants to help companies introduce schemes to reform their working practices. Mr Johnson was launching the Work-Life Balance Challenge Fund at Watford Football Club.