'Why would anyone work here?’ Dudley councillor asks amid record number of staff on sick leave

A meeting of the authority’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee on March 12 was told levels of sick leave rose to 10.83 days per full-time employee in the third quarter of the financial year which cost the council £6.9 million.

The leading causes of absence were mental health related with work related stress being the third highest reason for staff being off sick at the council.

Councillor Qasim Mughal said: “The data doesn’t paint Dudley Council performance in a great picture when we have days lost up by 10 per cent per employee over the last 12 months.

“We keep hearing that the cut in the workforce isn’t having an impact but clearly it is. Staff are clearly burned out, they are struggling and we are not doing anything about it.”

Dudley Council’s chief executive, Balvinder Heran, told Councillor Mughal the council has flexible working practices, staff are moved to teams to boost numbers and have options to work at home or cut their hours if they need to.

Ms Heran said: “As a local authority we have the most flexible working policies, I believe, in the Black Country.”

She added Local Government Association benchmarks for lost days to sickness were eight to ten days.

Councillor Mughal said: “Everyone wants to recruit the best, why would anyone want to come to Dudley when the people who already work here don’t want to come to work?

“It is appalling the estimated cost of sickness in quarter three is £7m, in 24/25 we passed a budget to save £42m, the savings we have tried to make have potentially cost us more.”

Ms Heran pointed out the £7m was against a total annual wage bill at the council of £180m.

She said: “Nationally the biggest cause of sickness in private, public and voluntary sectors is mental health and anxiety.

“We are putting in place additional measures to help staff and some mental health and anxiety staff are suffering is not related to work. I don’t want to see a single member of staff sick.”