Issue - meetings

An update report from the Human Resources Operations Manager (15 mins)

The HR Operations Manager introduced the report which had been circulated with the agenda. The report provided an overview of the council’s approach to managing and monitoring sickness absence. It described the significant work carried out by HR to improve sickness reporting and outlined the role of the council's Sickness Absence Management Policy and Procedures introduced in 2006.

This was due to be reviewed with the aim of reducing the trigger points. She also stressed the importance of supporting staff in what were currently quite stressful times with ever increasing pressure on resources.

The Council had a corporate target to reduce sickness absence to 8 days per full time equivalent employee for the financial year 2010/11. She advised that the absence rate outturn for the 12 month period to 31st of March 2011 was below target at 9.45 days, an increase over the previous year of 0.45 days.   However, if the depot sickness absence figures were taken out then the average for the remaining divisions would be 6.1 days. The report explained that that the ageing workforce and nature of the work of staff based at the depot was a factor and further work was being done to identify what support the council could offer to those employees.

Members made a number of comments/questions and the responses from the HR Operations Manager are set out:

• Para 2.9: A member questioned the use of the term “unsurprisingly’ in relation to sickness absence being lower in the private sector?
  • This was a well established industry statistic
• Para 2.10: why should the average cost of absence be higher in the public sector than the private sector?
  • Historically public sector employees have a more generous sickness pay scheme, set out in local government  national terms and condition of employment.. In the private sector, statutory sick pay is the norm and some employers do not pay for the first three days of sickness absence. In the public sector, with the exception of statutory services provided at the depot, there is no backfill when employees are off due to sickness. Managers spend a lot of their time managing absence and the shortfall.
  • The Cabinet Member Corporate Services highlighted that any changes in this area would require some difficult negotiations with trade unions.
• Para 2.11: Why is it not possible to estimate the cost of absence, even approximately?
  • It is possible to provide crude estimates but this does not take into account lost productivity and the impact of the remaining employees.
• Para 3.1: Should the target be more challenging and closer to the private sector average?
  • The absence policy is to be refreshed and as part of this work we will work with TU colleagues to discuss and agree lower trigger points and targets
• Para 3.8 : without further analysis being done is it an inherently unfair statement that an ageing workforce is the underlying cause of the high sickness absence?
  • There is evidence for this statement and her experience and that of the HR team was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7