Absence figures drop in Walsall Council sickies crackdown
Sickness absence at Walsall Council has fallen over the last 12 months following a crackdown to reduce the number of staff missing from work, figures have revealed.
Absence levels have reduced to an average of under nine days per employee in 2012/2013, compared to more than 12 in 2009/2010. Bosses today hailed it as an 'exceptional' improvement.
A tougher system was introduced more than 18 months ago meaning staff have to speak to a nurse when calling in sick. It followed a trial in some departments and allows employees to seek medical advice.
It helps to improve productivity and reduce the need to use costly agency staff at the cash-strapped authority as it recently emerged savings of £80 million are necessary in the next five years.
Finance and personnel chief councillor Chris Towe said there had been an improvement in the number of days lost sickness where the council had to pay occupational sick pay.
He added they wanted to offer support to workers when they are ill while also driving down the number of staff missing from work.
"This has reduced from 9.05 days in 2011/2012 to 8.95 in 2012/2013," he said. "This follows four exceptional years of improvement on this important underlying indicator of productivity and staff morale.
"Every effort is made to help people deal with sickness absence and we have put a lot of things in place. However, we are a business like everybody else, we have to have people there at work to do the jobs."
Staff at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust have been tackling higher than expected sickness absence over the last year. Sickness for last year stood at 4.39 per cent, an increase of 0.49 per cent on the previous 12 months.
The authority has been forced to axe posts as part of £13m savings this year. But, bosses said just two workers suffered compulsory redundancy.
The council has been forced to scrap 166 positions in its budget as part of the need to make cuts. Of these 59 posts were vacant while 73 workers went voluntarily. Thirty members of staff have been redeployed with two compulsory redundancies. There are two jobs still to be resolved.
The council recently revealed it is facing further cuts of £80m over the next five years.
The town hall is facing a reduction of £16.5m in funding from the Government for next year alone, leaving a black hole of £20m in its budget.
With further cuts from Westminster likely, council chiefs are now preparing for the worst as they look to make huge savings across the board.