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    "attribution": [
      "© Crown and database right. Derived from content available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 from legislation.gov.uk.",
      "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0."
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  "figure": {
    "id": "employment.working_time.max_weekly_hours",
    "name": "Maximum weekly working time: average hours limit",
    "category": "employment",
    "jurisdiction": "GB",
    "unit": "hours",
    "value_type": "count",
    "currency": null,
    "cadence": null,
    "source_type": "si",
    "si_probe": {
      "verdict": "SI-HOLDS",
      "provision": "regulation-4-1",
      "probed": "2026-09-11",
      "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/data.xml",
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      "setter": "uksi/1998/1833",
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      "setter_provision": "regulation-4-1",
      "f_note": null,
      "tokens": [
        "shall not exceed an average of 48 hours for each seven days"
      ],
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    "values": [
      {
        "value": 48,
        "value_minor": null,
        "effective_from": "1998-10-01",
        "effective_to": null,
        "announcement_date": null,
        "enacted_date": null,
        "instrument_made": true,
        "terminal_kind": null,
        "status": "single_source_A",
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          {
            "role": "legislation",
            "citation": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/made (SI 1998/1833 reg 4(1) as made: \"Subject to regulation 5, a worker's working time, including overtime, in any reference period which is applicable in his case shall not exceed an average of 48 hours for each seven days\"; in force 1 October 1998, reg 1(1))",
            "uri": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/made",
            "retrieved": "2026-09-11T00:12:39Z",
            "content_hash": "sha256:702d61bf3f06765266766b01fd082464b0d0750526f6a1d8019d63ab3a2c9c26",
            "content_hash_of": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/made/data.xml"
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    ],
    "derivation": null,
    "invariants": [],
    "lineage": [],
    "definitions": [
      {
        "from": null,
        "to": null,
        "text": "The limit on a worker's working time: an average of 48 hours for each seven days, measured over the applicable reference period and including overtime (regulation 4(1) of the Working Time Regulations 1998). A limit on an AVERAGE, not a maximum for any single week, and one an individual worker may agree in writing to disapply.",
        "instrument": "Working Time Regulations 1998 reg 4(1)"
      }
    ],
    "applicability": {
      "basis": "event_date",
      "note": "Measured over the reference period applicable to the worker, not over a tax year or a pay period: regulation 4(3) gives successive 17-week periods, or any period a relevant agreement specifies, and regulation 4(4) to (7) say how the average is computed. The Regulations came into force on 1 October 1998 (reg 1(1)), which is the date this record carries. Since 17 December 1999 the paragraph has opened \"Unless his employer has first obtained the worker's agreement in writing to perform such work\" instead of \"Subject to regulation 5\" — SI 1999/3372 reg 3(1)(a) — which moved WHO the limit binds, not the 48 hours.",
      "article": "Working Time Regulations 1998 regs 1(1), 4(1), 4(3)-(7); SI 1999/3372 reg 3(1)(a)"
    },
    "scope_note": "48 hours as a 17-week AVERAGE, so a 60-hour week breaks nothing on its own. It is the one working-time limit with an INDIVIDUAL opt-out: since SI 1999/3372 the paragraph applies unless the employer has the worker's written agreement to work beyond it, and regulation 4(2) then requires up-to-date records of who has agreed. Regulation 25A(1) substitutes 52 hours for the 48 in the doctors-in-training modification it describes, which is a different figure and a spent one. The night worker's separate eight-hour average is `employment.working_time.night_work_limit_hours`, and a young worker's hard 40-hour week is `employment.working_time.young_worker.max_weekly_hours`.",
    "notes": "An SI carry (ADR-0014), and a HOST-STATES one under D18 §2: SI 1999/3372 reg 3(1)(a) substituted the OPENING WORDS of regulation 4(1) — \"Subject to regulation 5\" — and its located span prints no part of the 48 hours, so the amendment touched other words of the provision and not the value. That relief is why this row exists: on 2026-09-11 it read MISFILED in both directions and was written up as a finding rather than authored (`5b52432`), because the setter's as-made text does not carry the value either — SI 1999/3372 prints \"48 hours\" only in its explanatory note. The 1998 Regulations' own as-made text is the frozen witness, both documents are hashed here, and Gate 2 recomputes the relief rather than trusting it. No archived GOV.UK page states the limit, so the record is single_source_A by design.",
    "record_version": 3
  },
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    "record_url": "https://statbook.co.uk/v1/figures/employment.working_time.max_weekly_hours.json",
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        "role": "legislation",
        "citation": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/made (SI 1998/1833 reg 4(1) as made: \"Subject to regulation 5, a worker's working time, including overtime, in any reference period which is applicable in his case shall not exceed an average of 48 hours for each seven days\"; in force 1 October 1998, reg 1(1))",
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