Crackdown on council sickies

Lynne Thompson . . . blames a small minority

Skiving workers ‘stealing’ from taxpayers

THE leader of Oldham Council has vowed to crack down on excessive town hall sick leave after figures revealed that the average full-time Oldham Council worker takes 10.6 days off sick each year.

Responding to the figures, Councillor Howard Sykes said: “It’s not good enough and we’re doing something about it. We’re setting targets to drive this figure right down.”

The 10.6 average days taken, although a reduction on last year’s figure of 11.5 days, equate to almost 84,000 days lost between April, 2008, and April this year.

Councillor Lynne Thompson admitted that staff sick leave represents one of the biggest losses of money for the council and accused the small minority of staff who slack off as stealing from Oldham taxpayers.

Councillor Thompson, the cabinet member for finance and resources, said: “We recognise that towns like Oldham have a high incidence of health problems and the vast majority of council staff work incredibly hard.

“But like any other organisation, it’s inevitable that we have a very small minority of workers who take some duvet days and if we find people are bunking off in this way, we would view them as effectively stealing from the taxpayer.

“Skiving in this way is not a victimless act, particularly when other staff have to cover for them while they are off. It costs a lot of money and piles the pressure and stress on their colleagues.”

Figures also reveal that of all the sick leave taken by full-time council staff over the past year, 64 per cent of it was classed as long term, where staff take more than four weeks off, and 36 per cent of it was short term.

A number of schemes have been introduced over the past few years in a bid to cut town hall sick days, including healthy eating and stop smoking programmes.

Council staff also have access to a phoneline staffed by trained counsellors, who can advise them on any aspect of their life which could contribute to stress and illness, including problems at work or home.

The absence policy has recently been reviewed to improve the monitoring of staff sick days, and plans to improve staff training to boost job satisfaction could soon be in the pipeline.

The ruling Liberal Democrats made a reduction in council sick leave one of their priorities and have hailed the reduction from last year’s figure, which was better than their target.

But they want to drive that figure down further, with a target of 9.8 days for 2009-10.

Councillor Thompson said: “It’s important to remember that many smaller councils don’t have responsibility for refuse collection and care homes, and these are the jobs where people run a high risk of injury and when they can’t go into work with a cold because they will infect vulnerable people.

“Our sick leave is about average when set against the other Greater Manchester authorities and we’ve had a good improvement from last year, but we don’t want to be average, we want to be better than that.

“We’re aiming for a healthy workforce, who are treated fairly and who treat us fairly in return.