Agenda item

The Service Director Human Resources and Business Support will submit a report on the position with regard to sickness absence for the financial year 2017/18 and providing a comparison and summary for the whole of the financial year 2017/18 with the previous financial year 2016/17.

The Service Director Human Resources and Business Support submitted a report on the position with regard to sickness absence for the financial year 2017/18 and providing a comparison and summary for the whole of the financial year 2017/18 with the previous financial year 2016/17.

In summary, the report indicated that the total lost days per employee of 7.87 days was an improvement on the overall days lost compared to both 2015/16 and 2016/17 and this was less than the public sector average of 8.5 days absence in the previous year.  This figure was, however, higher than the private sector of 5.6 days lost per employee. 

Whilst this was an improving picture, there was still a need to significantly improve the management of sickness absence to achieve the Council’s future performance indicator target of 6 days per employee for 2018/19.

The report then went on to outline:

·         the ways in which the Human Resources Wellbeing and Targeted Intervention Team would provide advice and support to managers

·         other initiatives including Wellbeing Initiatives and Work Place Health Champions all of which aimed to improve sickness absence.

In the ensuing discussion the following matters were raised:

·         it was noted that the main reason for absence during 2017/18 was due to mental health issues including stress, anxiety and depression.  In response, an action plan had been prepared to try to identify the signs of stress so that appropriate mechanisms could be put in place to give additional help and support

·         the difficulties of identifying causation factors of stress were discussed and the involvement of Occupational Health in this was highlighted

·         arising out of the above, the Service Director referred to recently commissioned Government research on thriving at work which, amongst other things, examined interventions and the importance of recognising when staff were under stress

·         The involvement of the Senior Management Team was referred to and it was noted that the Team also has a mental Health Champion

·         It was noted that appropriate training events were being planned for the near future

·         The impact of the staffing reductions over the last 10 years were referred to which, it was suggested, might be one of the causation factors of stress.  The reduction in the number of days absence per employee was, however, something to be applauded

RESOLVED that the report be received and that Mrs A Brown be thanked for attending the meeting and for answering Members questions.