Staff sickness levels at a Lothians council increased over the last year despite the end of the pandemic, a new report has found - with high levels of stress one of the biggest factors
A West Lothian Council report revealed almost 2,000 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, the report confirmed there had been "reduced absence rates" during the later stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
That hard work now appears to be taking a toll however. Every council service area except Education Services recorded absences higher than the council target.
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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 9,961 days, or almost 35% of all days lost. Of those days 39% were classed as long term, which means four or more weeks.
Stress, work or personal accounted for 5,487 days lost, with long term illness representing 43% of the figure. In other areas 1,940 days were lost to anxiety. 1,063 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 1 April 2022 to 31 June 2022 is 5.73%. A total of 1,996 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%. 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 7,730 days lost, 6, 210 (80.34%) of those days 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 6,116 days lost, 5,067 (82.85%) of those days 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 3,822 days lost in this department, 2,931 (84.32%) 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.”
In the first quarter of the new financial year, the council had 28 employees reported as being absent due to Long Covid/extended Covid symptoms of which 11 returned to work during the period.
The council has a variety of programmes to help staff, including a telephone-based counselling service has been in operation provided by Optima Health since 2018.
Statistics from the first quarter of the year show that 34 employees received mental health assessments which is a decrease from last quarter where 55 employees were assessed.
The report added: "Of the 34 assessed, 18 employees were referred for counselling services and 16 employees were provided onward referral and guidance. Of the 18 employees who were referred for counselling, 13 received structured telephone counselling sessions and 5 provided with video counselling sessions.
"Contact reasons indicate that none of calls in the latest quarter were in relation to solely work related issues, 55.88% in relation to personal issues and 44.12% due to a combination of work and personal related issues."
The council also held a Healthy Working Lives (HWL) week in June aimed at promoting the number of well-being supports available with a particular focus on financial well-being in light of the cost of living rises. Uptake for some of the events however was low and discussions are to be held on how more can be encouraged to attend.
Councillor Lynda Kenna suggested that some staff were facing more stress because of increasing workloads as posts were being vacated by workers returning to foreign countries and jobs not being filled.
Chairing the meeting Councillor Kirsteen Sullivan said such figures would not be within the remit of the report.
Councillor Sullivan suggested: “Given the cost of living crisis financial reasons could be added for illness that would give insight into whether staff may benefit from additional signposting for assistance.”
Interim Head of Corporate Services, Lesley Henderson agreed this could be done.
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