Agenda item

To consider the attached report.

The Assistant Director, Peoples Team and Business Support, Ms Maginnis introduced her report on Council absence figures Q3 and Q4 for 2017/18. It included absence figures by Directorate, the number of employees who had met the trigger level, those who had more than 4 weeks absence and the reasons for absence. 

The Council’s target for sickness absence under RES001 for 2017/2018 was an average of 7.25 days per employee. The current outturn figure for the two quarters was an average of 4.74 days, which was above the target of 3.22 days.

During Q3, 6.3% of employees met the trigger levels or above, 28.2% had sickness absence but did not meet the triggers and 65.5% had no absence.  During Q4, 7.2 % of employees met the trigger levels or above, 29.3 % had sickness absence but did not meet the trigger levels and 63.5 % had no absence.

The number of long term cases due to Cancer has remained the same during Q2 – Q4 and represented 21% of the number of staff with long term absence. This percentage figure was the same for Mental Health issues.  The number of employees with musculoskeletal problems had also been consistent across all 4 quarters.

Further to the discussions at the last Resources Select Committee further analysis of long term absences including age, years’ service and grade has been provided. Overall in Q3, 28% of staff with service less than 5 years the same as employees with 26 years +, 44% were in the age bracket 46-55 and 61% were at grades 4 – 6.  In Q4, 56% of long term absence was taken by employees with 5 years’ service or less, they would more likely be in the age bracket 46–55 at 33% and in the grade range of 4-6 at 61%. 

Over two thirds of staff had no absences which had been quite consistent over a number of years; however, the actual number of employees’ not recording sickness absence had reduced in this current period compared to the same quarters last year.

The Council was 0.72 days over its target of 7.25 during 2017/2018. Q1 performance was reasonable but the rest of the year quarterly targets were met or exceeded. Officers with less than 5 years service had the majority of long term absences in Q3 and Q4.

Managers were still provided with appropriate guidance and support.

Councillor Chana asked if there were procedures to find out what was happening when someone went off sick. He was told that the Council had a managing Absence Policy that both staff and managers adhered to. In terms of mental health issues managers were advised to refer the employee to Occupational Health as soon as possible and to consider actions if it was a possible longer term case.

Councillor Patel asked if the Occupational Health Service was something we provided or was it outsourced. He was told that it was outsourced to Harlow Occupational Health Service.

Councillor Bedford noted that RTA should now be referred to RTCs (C for collisions). He also wanted to know if a member of staff had a dental appointment how did they take that time off. He was told that employees would be required to use their own time to cover the appointment.

Councillor Bedford wanted to know for  officers on long term sick leave, were there any trigger points for instance  for welfare support. Ms Maginnis said that we provided counselling support and were also looking at the Macmillan Charity to provide future help with staff dealing with cancer diagnosis and treatment. Managers keep in regular contact with their staff to keep them informed of what was happening at work etc.

Councillor Bedford noted that there was nothing about accidents and was told that there was not a specific reason for accidents; they would be recorded under one of the existing reasons i.e. musculoskeletal.

Ms Maginnis also explained the processes the council used to help officers with mental health issues, their use of a specialist charity and support both for staff and managers.

Councillor Bedford asked if there were any plans to have private health insurance for staff. He was told that this had been investigated but there were tax implications. We do use an organisation called ‘Simply Health’, where money was taken from an officer’s salary to pay for their services; officers were also looking at other schemes.

RESOLVED:

That the Committee noted the report on sickness absence.