Angus Council has stemmed its sickness absence rate, according to new data.
After a rising tide of lost days which cost the authority almost £3.75 million in sick pay last year, scrutiny and audit committee councillors will hear today that the percentage of working days lost in this year’s first quarter from April to June dipped by a shade under 18% from the previous three-month period.
However, the figure of 10,572 days represents a 4.1% increase on the percentage of days lost in the corresponding quarter last year.
A report by HR, IT and organisational development chief Sharon Faulkner states: “This increase is a result of both teachers’ and local government employees’ absence increasing by 10.9% and 2.7% respectively compared with the corresponding quarter in 2014/15.”
Each employee was off sick for an average of 2.04 days, compared to 2.01 days in the same quarter of 2014/15.
Of the total, a third were single-day absences, 40% were two to five days, 14% six to 20 days and 13% more than 20 days.
The single day absences accounted for just 5% of total days lost, with absences of 20 days 55%.
Stress-related illness, stomach issues, back problem, respiratory/circulatory/heart and lower limb were the top five reasons for absence during the period.
The cost of sick pay for the quarter was £1.29m.
Top officials have said that tackling sickness absence “sympathetically but robustly” is a priority for the council after what was acknowledged as a disappointing situation last year.
Although better than the authority’s worst annual sickness absence statistics, 2014/15 saw the average number of working days lost per employee climb to 9.1.
That translated into more than 45,000 working days being lost.
Officials have said short-term absences can lead to serious disruption to council operations and make it difficult for colleagues to maintain service delivery standards.
The council is developing a new sickness reporting format to deliver enhanced trend information in its bid to tackle the issue.