Posted: Thu 24th Jan 2019

Stress, depression and anxiety given as reason in 37% of sickness days at council

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area
This article is old - Published: Thursday, Jan 24th, 2019

Councillors have met to review workforce monitoring information at Wrexham Council, with a report before them noting various data over sickness days and leave as well as use of agency staff.

Sue Robins, Wrexham Council’s HR & OD Service Manager took questions alongside Councillor David Kelly the Lead Member for Planning and Corporate Services.

The below shows the total number of sickness days by department, with a note “a calculation is then made within our reports which incorporate an employee’s FTE to produce FTE days lost as displayed below”. Total sickness days is down from 51,047 in 2016-17 to 48,918 in 2017-18.

Sickness reasons are broken down into the following table, with councillors told improved awareness and reporting is the likely reason why ‘stress depression and anxiety’ increased so much – and likewise why ‘not recorded’ dropped from 25% to 3%.

Cllr Bryan Apsley enquired if the stress figures were up due to the increased monitoring, with Cllr Kelly replying: “We are now being more specific. The default figure goes from one to the other. We have got to put this along side current initiatives in place, where people are flagging up stress issues, where historically they were not being honest about it.

“It was almost looked upon, people didn’t want to admit they had this issue, now there is more sympathy out there and transparency.”

The council officer added that stress is not a medical term rather ‘a symptom’, “People report with other illnesses but then self report stress. With the promotion the council have been doing on the mental health and well-being side, they will say ‘this is the reason’ why they are absent.”

A range of council initiatives were explained, including mental health awareness sessions for managers, a carefirst helpline and 40 people trained as ‘mental health first aiders’ who will soon become mental health champions.

The answer pleased Cllr Geoff Lowe, who said he was pleased the council were ‘getting smarter on this’.

Referring to the above table Cllr Dana Davies asked if the data collection system only had those options, and thus the ‘other’ was 20%, and was told that reporting had improved over the years but there were areas where the data could be improved.

Cllr Davies also queried over days lost to sickness, “In the number of days lost to sickness absence was running 10.9%, are we setting a target for wrexham council? We have always held at 11-12%, are we being proactive in say setting a target of 10% this year so can give a push?

The officer replied that historically targets had been set however ‘they were not realistic’, describing a .5 to 1% reduction assigned to departments depending on performance but effectively saying the target was binned as it ‘was not achievable’. The new tactic was described as ‘actively trying’ to ensure a ‘downward trend’.

Cllr Davies also wanted a firm figure assigned to the cost of sickness to Wrexham Council, pointing to the budget process as a reason why she felt the figure was important.

Cllr Kelly said the figure was ‘hard to quantify an actual cost’, pointing out that if someone is sick and not replaced there is no cost ‘but there is really a cost as the work does not get done’.

The officer agreed with Cllr Kelly and added ‘there is not a real formulae that is used to measure it’.

Cllr Davies was unhappy, pointing to other organisations that calculate such figures, “I have been asking for this for six years and am no further forward”.

The report also contains the following graph showing ‘Agency Worker Spend’ by department:

Cllr Dana Davies enquired ‘why are we recruiting agency cover to cover annual leave? I imagine that should be managed by departments?’

Cllr Kelly agreed, “The issue with annual leave is the cumulative effect. You cover annual leave but when you have got staff sickness people still have to take annual leave in the allowed time. The default situation is to cover annual leave with agency as the one who would be covering is off sick. That is now always the case though.

The officer gave further detail, noting: “In some areas where there is one to one care for a client sometimes, because of rotas and other leave commitments, it is not possible” and so agency staff are used.

The officer also indirectly pointed to cuts, saying that ‘some service areas are a lot thinner on the ground than previously’, adding a monthly matrix report is sent to managers with requests to reconsider how annual leaves are assigned and covered.

Cllr Davies went on, “My concern is if annual leave is not being managed and departments annual leave can be taken on block and is allowed to happen you have to bring in agency staff as you lose someone for five to six weeks. If that is happening we have to review procedures.

“Annual leave should not be an additional cost to organisation, it should be managed. Some organisations and companies only allow two week blocks of annual leave.”

The officer pointed to the leave of absence policy, noting there was ‘a reference to what is reasonable’ in it and that requests for more than three or four weeks require a head of department for approval and usually require ‘exceptional circumstances’.

Cllr Mike Morris offered his thoughts, pointing out in a care environment those who need care still need care regardless of annual leave and therefore agency staff were needed. Cllr Morris also pointed to the housing and economy numbers, stating that due to the Welsh Housing Quality Standards work agency staff were being used and once the work is complete the agency staff would not be needed – rather than specific contractors we have heard referenced previously.

Cllr Adrienne Jeorrett queried about the main issues on staff recruitment, and was told by Cllr Kelly that Wrexham Council have ‘literally put our adverts where we have had one expression of interest’, citing difficulties in recruiting against the private sector.

The council officer gave an example of if someone resigned and worked a months notice, it is possible a replacement could not be recruited in time with the DBS checks themselves taking 3-4 weeks to come back. Such gaps were shown in the data as on occasion being filled by agency staff.

Cllr Gwenfair Jones enquired to the calibre of checks carried out on agency staff, and was reassured that all such staff were vetted to the same degree as non-agency council staff.

You can see the full report and data presented to councillors here.



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