Council staff sickness absence increases

Richard Youle, local democracy reporter

Staff sickness absence among Swansea Council staff, including those working in schools, increased from an average of 10.7 days per full-time employee to 12.3 days last year.

It rose in all departments except education, where it fell slightly due to a reclassification of some school-based staff to corporate staff.

The council has 9,009 full-time equivalent staff, meaning 110,810 days – or 303 years – of total work time was lost.

The authority now employs dedicated sickness management officers in its social services department and its waste and environment – or place – department, and is recruiting one for the education directorate.

Interventions

These officers support managers and enable earlier interventions to try to reduce employee absence.

A report before the council’s audit and governance committee said the rise in staff sickness absence in 2024-25 was likely to be attributable to factors including an increase in the reporting of absence for compliance reasons, plus wider trends such as an ageing workforce and the prevalence of complex health conditions.

The report said comparable data from Wales’ other 21 councils wasn’t available for 2024-25. It added that only five of 19 councils with verifiable data had a lower sickness absence rate than Swansea in 2023-24, meaning that Swansea was losing fewer work days per employee than most others that year.

Ness Young, director of corporate services, told the committee that around 80% of the council’s total sickness absence was due to people being off long-term – defined as more than 28 days. She said two principal causes of absence were mental health reasons such as stress, depression and bereavement – both work and non-work related – and an ageing workforce.

Absence policy

A new absence policy due to be implemented shortly will have a more compassionate approach than the current one to encourage employees’ recovery and return to work.

The compassionate approach was welcomed by Cllr Lesley Walton, who felt it was more likely to result in better outcomes. Referring to people taking time off sick, she said: “I know there are always going to be people who are slightly pulling a fast one, but the vast majority are not.”

The report said the council had acted decisively to address the root causes of sickness absence, and that an additional occupational health adviser was being recruited plus a student occupational health nurse.

The council does not count workplace accidents towards an individual’s sickness absence levels.

Bringing in agency workers can mitigate the impact of staff being off sick, but this only accounts for around 6% of the council’s overall agency use. The committee report went on to say the council spent £4.2 million on its preferred agency provider in 2024-25.