Angus Council lost more than 13,000 working days to staff sickness last quarter, The Courier can reveal.
Figures to be considered by the scrutiny and audit committee reveal council employees clocked up 13,264 sick days from the start of October to the end of December.
The total is a drop of 2,096.5 days, compared with the previous quarter, and is 112 fewer than the same period in 2011. Teachers calling in sick accounted for 2,211 days, down from 2,054 in 2011.
Eleanor McGrath, campaign manager at TaxPayers’ Alliance, said the reduction did not hide the fact the council had lost an “enormous” amount of time to sickness.
“Things have improved slightly but it’s not nearly good enough to provide residents with value for money.
“Of course, employers should be sympathetic to genuine illnesses but there seems to be a different approach when taxpayers are footing the bill for sick pay.
“Local authorities have to make savings and that will be much more difficult as long as public sector sick rates continue to far outstrip those in the private sector.”
Absences of one day accounted for 6% of total days lost, absences of two to five days accounted for 19%, absences of six to 20 days accounted for 24% and absences of more than 20 days accounted for 51%.
An average of 2.72 days was lost per council employee, with an average of 1.74 days lost per teacher.
The chief executive’s department lost 2.99% of its available working days to sickness, compared with 1.77% last year. Corporate services lost 3.23% (4.08), education 4.23% (4.73), infrastructure 2.63% (3.31), neighbourhood services 6.93% (6.88) and social work and health 7.05% (6.57).
As part of the council’s performance management arrangements, each department maintains figures on sickness absence in a standard format. The data is then collated for the council as a whole and reported on a quarterly basis.
During the period three employees were retired on the grounds of ill health.
Angus Council declined to comment.