Council sick days

South Ayrshire Council employees took nearly 46,000 days off sick last year, writes Sarah Hilley.

During that time they still got paid £ 3.6 million.

On average the number corresponds to about nine days off for each employee.

Nearly a third of all staff ( 33 per cent) who called in sick said they couldn’t work because of a psychological issue.

That was the main reason for staff absence followed by musculoskeletal and hospitalisation.

The figures cover April 1, 2019 to March 31 this year.

Thirteen people were sacked because of unacceptable absence levels during the 12 months.

Employees go through three stages of formal meetings to discuss absence before action is taken.

The statistics were presented to councillors on the council’s Service and Performance Panel earlier this month.

Teachers were not in work for 6,116 days - with a “cost of absence” amounting to about £ 1.17 million.

Community health and care services employees were absent for 8,495 days.

The report presented to councillors sitting on the panel said: “The National Statutory Performance Indicators require councils to provide statistics for employee absence based on the ‘ total number of work days lost’ together with the ‘ average number of days lost per employee’ categorised separately for Teachers and Local Government Employees.”

It added: “The average days lost per employee for the year is 8.97. This is a 7.3 percent increase on 2018/ 19 ( 8.36 days).”