COUNCIL STAFF

The city council's 8,700 full-time employees are each taking an average of 10 days off ill a year, costing the taxpayer about £5m a year. The council has revealed it is now looking at ways of reducing staff sick days by ONE day per employee per YEAR. But union members feel the authorities should be looking more closely at the reasons why people are taking time off. Employees who have worked for the council for more than a year are entitled to SIX MONTHS of full-paid sick leave and a further SIX MONTHS on half pay.

The council has or is introducing measures to help people avoid going off sick. These include stress counselling, physiotherapy and occupational therapy sessions. The average number of sick days for a council employee nationally is 10.3. Councillor Dave Roberts, city council cabinet member for personnel, equality and e-government, said that staff in social services and education were under the most stress. He added, "Our aim is to reduce it on a staggered basis. What we have said to the staff if is that there is £5m there to be saved. If the staff can reduce the sickness levels to a reasonable extent, then we would look at conveying the benefits of that to the staff in things like additional annual leave."

Karl Reid, chairman of the corporate joint committee of all of the trade unions representing council workers, said, "We need to look at the reasons why before we bring it down. Why are people going off work with stress, for example? Is it the working environment, or is it factors outside work?" Statistics from other authorities reveal that the problem is widespread.