THE level of sickness absence among council staff is appalling (Sickness still big headache, The Press January 14).

The revelation that each employee in York is averaging four weeks off sick is astounding. In simple terms, it means council services can be provided with one-twelfth fewer staff.

Given that there are almost 5,000 employees and assuming an average salary of £12,500, the waste of money involved is £6 million a year.

If this was happening in the private sector, people would be sacked and management heads would roll. All we get from the council leadership is an empty promise to try to do better.

Council tax-payers deserve much more than a bleating comment that it will be "a number of years" before things will improve.

Such complacency is unacceptable; it amounts to a neglect of the council's responsibility to look after the public purse. But what can we expect from a council leadership that is asking the public how to save £1 million so it can then blame us for the cuts?

We elect councils to manage city affairs. We want them to budget prudently and spend wisely. Whether they like it or not this includes making sure that employees are not shirking.

Before committing £227,000 to "develop an up to date planning framework for the city" the council would do well to employ personnel to develop an "attendance policy".

Such a system uses good old-fashioned sticks and carrots to make sure people do not swing the lead and burden their colleagues by taking unwarranted time-off.

Councillors should remember they are accountable for their actions through the ballot box. Although they will put up with most foibles, the public will not accept financial mismanagement.

Allan Charlesworth, Old Earswick, York.


A City of York Council spokeswoman said: "The council's high level of sickness among its staff is indeed unacceptable. We are acutely aware that these levels of absenteeism need to be tackled and are working extremely hard to reduce these.

Each employee is not averaging four weeks - the current average is 12.9 days per full time employee. This figure is down from 13.5 days the previous year and it is anticipated that this will drop further this year.

The council is implementing a new and robust attendance management policy which will further impact on sickness levels.

This new policy has two phases of implementation: the first proactively managing absence and the second maximising attendance. It has clearer processes which will record better management information resulting in improved reports to managers and members, ensuring that sickness trends can be identified and dealt with more effectively and rapidly and tighter controls on levels of absence which require management action.

This policy implementation is being supported by a team in HR who are looking at absence as well as the overall health and well-being of our staff.

As well as the council-wide approach there are a number of ongoing projects to reduce sickness within individual departments."