Staff sickness levels at West Lothian Council increased over the last year despite the end of the pandemic – with high levels of stress one of the biggest factors.
A council report revealed that almost 2000 staff were off sick over the three months from April to the end of June this year.
Noting the year on year increase in the accumulative absence figures, a new report confirmed there had been “reduced absence rates” during the latter stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, that hard work now appears to be taking a toll.
Every council service area except Education Services recorded absences higher than the council target.
Figures presented to the Corporate Policy and Resources Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel (PDSP) showed that mental and behavioural reasons topped the list for absences, with 9961 days, or almost 35 per cent of all days lost.
Of those days, 39 per cent were classed as long-term, which means four or more weeks off.
Stress, work or personal reasons accounted for 5487 days lost, with long-term illness representing 43 per cent of the figure.
In other areas 1940 days were lost to anxiety, 1063 to depression and 157 to personal stress. The rules for reporting stress absences changed in July to allow for better reporting and implementation of appropriate measures.
This rule change introduced the separate counting for home related stress.
Total sickness absences for the three months from April also cover the categories musculoskeletal, infectious and accidents, injuries, poisoning.
The report said: “The sickness absence from April 1 2022 to June 31 2022 is 5.73 per cent. A total of 1996 employees were absent from work for one or more days in this reporting period 1 April 2022 to 31 June 2022.
“This 2022/23 accumulative absence figure is higher than the figure for the same period in the previous year, 2021/22, which was 5.05 per cent.
“However, this lower rate was impacted by reduced absence rates during the later stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Most days were lost in Operational Services which includes manual labour teams such as waste workers and Neighbourhood Environment Teams.
Of the total number of 7730 days lost, 6210 (80.34 per cent) of those were due to long-term absence and were accounted for by 130 employees.
Next highest was Social Policy, which covers health and social care.
Of the total number of 6116 days lost, 5067 (82.85 per cent) of those were due to long-term absence and were accounted for by 107 employees.
Third highest was in Housing, Customer Service and Building Services.
Of the total number of 3822 days lost in this department, 2931 (84.32 per cent) of those were down to long-term absence and were accounted for by 63 employees.
The least number of days lost were in Corporate Services, and the CEO, Finance and Property Services.
The report, by Claire Wallace, interim HR services manager added: “Stress continues to be the highest contributor to levels of sickness absence across the council and the focus will continue to be on targeting additional support at those service areas that are reporting high levels of stress related absence.
“Absence rates for the council in 2022/23 have seen an increase in comparison from 2021/22, albeit these rates continued to rise throughout the year particularly as the easing of covid restrictions continued.”
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