Agenda item

(Director of Resources) to consider the attached report.

The Assistant Director Human Resources, Ms P Maginnis, introduced her report on the Council’s absence figures for Quarter 3 and 4 for 2016/17. It included absence figures by Directorate, the number of employees who have met the trigger level, those who have more than 4 weeks absence and the reasons for absence.  The Committee noted that the figures had improved for this last year and were on target for this year as well.

The Council’s target for sickness absence under RES001 for 2016/2017 was an average of 7.5 days per employee.  The current outturn figure for the two quarters was an average of 3.73 days, which was below the target of 3.86 days. The overall outturn figure for the year was an average of 6.71 days, which was 0.79 days lower than the target.

During Q3, 2.6% of employees met the trigger levels or above, 33.4% had sickness absence but did not meet the triggers and 64% had no absence.  During Q4, 5% of employees met the trigger levels or above, 30% had sickness absence but did not meet the trigger levels and 65% had no absence.

Currently, under the Council’s Managing Absence Policy there are trigger levels for initiating management action in cases of excessive sickness absence. These are:

(i)   during any ‘rolling’ twelve-month period an employee has had 5 or more separate occasions of absence; or

(ii)  during any ‘rolling’ twelve-month period an employee has had at least 8 working days of any combination of un/self certificated, or medically certificated absences.

The previous report to this committee flagged up mental health absences, officers had now put in processes to help and it was reducing. The Council was now part of a trust the “Mindful Employer” helping us to put in strategies to help staff.

There continued to be a significant decrease in the number of long term absence cases since 2014/2015.  During Q3 and Q4 of 2016/17 the numbers of staff taking long term sickness were less than those of the same quarter last year.

Roughly two thirds of staff did not have any time off sick.

At the December meeting of this Committee, members asked for comparison figures from our partner organisations. Unfortunately they had not been provided. However figures from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reported the following national figures:

·         Leisure – Average number of days – 5.1

·         Waste (Transport, distribution & storage) - Average number of days – 7

·         Housing repairs (construction) - Average number of days – 4.9

It should be noted that the waste figures came from three organisations; this was not a priority for the private sector.

An article will be published in District Lines to show members of staff sickness absence figures and the improvements made.

Councillor Mohindra praised Ms Maginnis and her team for their work in bringing down the absence figures over the last few years. He was also happy to see us tackling Mental Health problems and also stress outside of work.

Councillor C Roberts wondered if we could get some feedback on the use of the helpline for staff. Ms Maginnis responded that hopefully we could get some sort of anonymous feedback for management use that could be useful.

RESOLVED:

That the Resources Select Committee noted the report on sickness absence.