Sickness absence still at epidemic levels within council workforce

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 13th Mar 2006

The Labour controlled Sheffield City Council has come under attack for the level of sickness absence within the council workforce. Liberal Democrats have highlighted the epidemic problem and noted that in some parts of the council, staff take over 20 days off sick on average every year.

Over the last year the average Council employee took eleven days off sick, this figure is above both the 9.1 day average for annual days off sick in the public sector and the private sector average which is at 6.4 days. Staff in the Social Services department, on average, take over 20 days off sick a year.

Liberal Democrats have criticised Labour leaders for passing through an inflation busting council tax increase at 4.65% when there are significant inefficiencies within the council to get to grips with. Lib Dems believe that a crackdown on sickness absence and a rigorous re-assessment of necessary backroom staff would deliver huge savings to the council taxpayer.

Councillor Andrew Sangar, Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet member for Finance, said: -

"The level of annual sickness absence within some sections of the council is way above what it should be. Even when you consider that the private sector average is nearly half of the council's eleven day average, we are still above the public sector average of nine days"

"Despite Labours promises that things would improve, when the Lib Dems flagged the problem up over a year ago, we are still seeing annual sickness absence at levels of over twenty days in some parts of the council"

"Current management systems are not working and we need a new approach to tackle the problem. This is just another example of how current Labour leaders are wasting taxpayers money within the Council. Its time they started to deal with the growing inefficiency in the Town Hall and delivered a lower council tax and better front line services to the people of Sheffield"