Report shows high mental health sickness rate at Welsh council

Anthony Lewis, Local democracy reporter.

Issues with mental health are the main reason people are off sick at a Welsh council, according to recently published figures. 

The report discussed at Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) Council’s overview and scrutiny committee on Wednesday, March 11, stated that the sickness rate at the local authority stands at 5.9%. 

This means an average of 11.9 working days lost per full-time equivalent employee. 

Absences relating to mental health accounted for 39% of all absences, with musculoskeletal accounting for 19% and gastrointestinal system accounting for 7%. 

Other conditions, such as infections, neurological, and oncology, accounted for around 5% each. 

Before Covid, the sickness rate was 4.9% with an average of 9.9 working days lost per employee, with absences related to mental health equating to 32% of all absences and muscular skeletal 22%. 

Sickness rates for individual service areas range from 2.3% to 7.3%, and apart from environmental services, mental health is the highest
reason for absence across all groups, the report says. 

Within the calendar year 2025, a total of 5,506 employees across all service areas had a sickness-related absence, so with a staff headcount of around 10,000 employees, this is 55% of the workforce. 

There were 3,830 staff off with short-term absence of less than 28 days, and there were 1,676 staff off with long-term absence of 28 days or more. 

The report says mental health absences can be broken down into more detailed reasons, with stress being the highest reason, equating to 40% of mental health absences. 

Further reasons are work-related stress (16%), bereavement reaction (14%), anxiety state (12%), mental illness (6%) and depression (5%). 

The report says that the occupational health unit recently presented a report to the senior leadership team on mental health and long-term absence, and the factors that may contribute to the high levels of absence in these areas. 

Organisational factors can include the nature of the role, ongoing restructures, staff turnover, temporary roles, advancement opportunities, and learning and development opportunities. 

Personal factors can include bereavement, caring responsibilities, substance misuse, stress, financial burdens, poor sleep, physical health, and work-life balance. 

The report says that the employee relations team works closely with occupational health and managers to review mental health and long-term absence cases and to ensure managers have the necessary training and skills to respond to mental health issues. 

It says the council has “a number of proactive and preventative initiatives in place to support staff wellbeing, these being informed by the data and information that is captured through operational workforce management arrangements.” 

The report adds that the occupational health and wellbeing unit (OHWU) provides support to all employees on health related matters, including physio and counselling, each year the OHWU runs campaigns such as know your numbers and flu injections and the council raises awareness on a variety of health promotional days, weeks and months. 

Further wellbeing support is provided to staff through the online Vivup system, staff network groups, online wellbeing webinars, staff benefits such as cycle to work and health care, leisure for life and reasonable adjustments. 

Richard Evans, director of human resources at the council, told the committee they’re midtable when compared to other Welsh councils in terms of absences. 

He also said that since the pandemic, they’ve noticed that mental health has overtaken musculoskeletal as the main reason why people are off. 

Mr Evans said they’re not getting huge feedback in terms of workplace issues, but when they do have workplace issues, they tend to divert resources to work with staff, managers and trade unions to try and rectify them. 

He said people have got complex lives these days and a lot of what people are experiencing is outside work.