Councillor 'shocked' over sick leave among staff

A councillor has said she was shocked by what she called "high levels" of sick leave among staff.

Conwy council's finance committee was told on Monday that staff sickness absence was at 11.78 days lost per full-time employee a year, according to a self-assessment report.

Penmaenmawr councillor Ann McCaffrey asked for more detail about the "hidden costs" of staff absence as well as turnover.

But the council's head of finance Amanda Hughes said the figures would be too difficult to collate.

"I must admit I was a bit shocked that there’s no concern about the levels," McCaffrey said, who called 12 days a "significant amount of lost time".

She conceded sickness was a "given", but added: "With a private sector background, it is really shocking to see the high level of absence and turnover and actually that we don’t have a concern about it here in this report in terms of the finance and resources.”

The sickness figures were marked orange in the report as "satisfactory", with staff turnover at 10.74%.

McCaffrey also referred to the report which said the council’s financial position continued to be "serious", with “increased demand pressures, inflationary impacts, and public expectations all contributing to a difficult operating environment”.

She added: “I think those figures are really worrying in the context of our financial crisis, and we need to look at how we maintain productivity and get value for money for every penny we spend.”

Council chief executive Rhun ap Gareth said it was "always difficult" to compare public and private sector because of the differences between the two.

"What we can do is compare with each other within the public sector and what good looks like, and that is always a good place to start. If somebody's doing it better, why? So we're looking at a complex picture," he said.

The chief executive said officers would see what could be done about increasing the amount of information around the hidden costs of staff absence.

The committee unanimously backed the report, with recommendations now being made to cabinet.