Agenda item

The Service Director Human Resources and Communications submitted a report outlining the Council’s position with regard to sickness absence for the financial year 2020/21.  It provided a comparison and summary for the financial year 2019/20 and an assurance of the mitigating actions and improvements that were in place or were being developed to reduce sickness absence levels and to support the health and wellbeing of employees.

The absence levels identified showed total days lost per employee of 7.77 days for 2020/21(inclusive of days lost to Covid) compared to 7.98 in 2019/20 and that the target for the year was 6 days.

The report gave a comparison with councils across the region which indicated that apart from one other Council, Barnsley had the lowest number of days lost.  In providing an analysis of the reasons for absence throughout the year, the report indicated that the main reason for absence was due to mental health including stress, anxiety and depression.  In addition, information from the CIPD Health and Wellbeing at Work Report 2021 stated that the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) had shown that Covid-19 had accounted for 14% of sickness absence since April 2020 but that whilst the pandemic had led to additional sickness absence, measures such as furloughing, social distancing, shielding and increased homeworking appeared to have helped reduce other causes of absence, allowing the general downward trend of previous years to continue.

The report also gave details of the number of days lost for the Yorkshire and Humber region for 2020/21, outlined the ways in which sickness absence was managed in Barnsley (utilising the Absence Reporting Dashboard that had been launched in August 2020), the use of Wellbeing initiatives and the work of the Wellbeing Stakeholder Group in identifying and implementing actions to support employee health and wellbeing.

It was noted that the Service had implemented a raft of measures to deal with sickness absence and to support employees and it was pleasing to report that the Authority had recently won the silver Wellness at Work Award and this gave an assurance that the Service was performing well and that interventions were put in place as appropriate.  The Service Director commented that the Service was never complacent and reported to SMT on a regular basis and examined all initiatives possible to bring the absence rates down.

In the ensuing discussion the following matters were highlighted:

·         It was noted that the ONS website indicated that the average number of days lost per employee was 3.6 days and question were, therefore, asked as to why Barnsley’s target was 6 days.  The Service Director commented on the reasons for this.  He stated that the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development benchmarking figure for local authorities was 8 days and the Barnsley target was below that.  In addition, the target was being reviewed but had been challenging and the plateauing out of sickness levels over the last four years had demonstrated that Barnsley benchmarked really well with other authorities particularly in the Yorkshire and Humber region.  The ONS figure was for the private sector which were very different organisations with different roles and sick pay schemes, and it was, therefore, difficult to compare between the two

·         It was noted that the comparisons with other authorities gave details captured via the Yorkshire and Humberside regional group and whilst it would have been nice to receive information from other metropolitan councils, this information had not been available at the time of the preparation of the report

·         In response to specific questioning, the Service Director outlined the action taken when an employee went off sick and he made particular reference to muscular skeletal injuries that had increased.  The Service was checking to see if there were any particular issues behind this increase.  It might, however, have arisen due to homeworking where people might not have been working as safely as they could have.  Managers were targeted with ensuring that their staff were working correctly and had the appropriate equipment to do their jobs

RESOLVED that the report be received and Mr M Potter, Service Director Human Resources and Communications be thanked for attending the meeting and for answering Members questions.