Staff sick levels cost council £4m

HIGH levels of absence, caused by sickness, has cost Leicestershire County Council around £4 million, a report has revealed.

And both the county council and Charnwood Borough Council are over their target sick days per fulltime equivalent (FTE) post.

Charnwood Borough Council, which has around 440 FTE employees, has a target of 7.5 sick days per FTE post but at the end of 2015/16 it was at 10.4 days per person.

A total of 4568.5 days were lost due to sickness in 2015/16 with 34 per cent of total absences down to cold, influenza and viral infections.

However, a spokesperson from Charnwood Borough Council says figures are improving: “Our figures for 2016/17 so far are lower than last year. The data shows that sickness levels are dropping and we’re hopeful they will continue to do so.

“We have a number of measures in place to try and reduce sickness, which include free flu jabs for staff and a confidential counselling service.

“We also have policies to help managers deal with sickness absence and support staff both while they’re at work and when they return from an absence.”

Figures released by Leicestershire County Council show between December 2015 and November 2015 some 45,000 working days were lost to illness costing the council millions with stress, depression and mental health issues accounting for more than a quarter of the time lost.

The county council, which has around 6,000 employees, has a target of 7.5 sick days per FTE post but it is currently at 10.5 days per person.

Deputy leader and chairman of the county’s employment committee, Coun Byron Rhodes, told the Echo: “Some departments of the council are reporting higher absence levels than the employment committee find acceptable so they have asked the chief executive to intervene with chief officers to take action to reduce the levels.”