Staff sickness levels on rise within council’s ‘fatigued’ workforce

Nicholas Thomas, local democracy reporter

A south Wales council has been urged to address staff sickness absence, after a new report showed it was on the rise.

Figures for 2024/25 show Caerphilly council lost 14.69 days due to sickness absence for every full-time equivalent employee – up from 13.62 days the previous year.

A report describes the absence levels as “too high” and shows they were greatest in social services and housing for the third successive year.

At a scrutiny committee meeting, on Tuesday November 4, Cllr Gary Enright said the council has “got to get our heads around how much this is costing our local authority”.

Cllr Colin Mann suggested the cost of sickness absence would be “running into the millions”.

The report notes staff face “increased expectations… at a time when the council’s resources continue to be stretched through budget pressures, sickness absence and increased workloads”.

This “has the potential to negatively impact the resilience and wellbeing of our workforce”, the report added.

Many of the challenges Caerphilly County Borough Council faces are “external and common to most other local authorities”, said Cllr Nigel George, the cabinet member for corporate services.

The committee chairman, Cllr Gary Johnston, said “we know we are asking our staff to do more for less”.

Cllr Enright noted Caerphilly Council continues to run many services in-house which other councils may have outsourced.

He suggested the subsequent need for more staff to run those services may explain the sickness absence rates being so high – but added that even if that were the case, the council should address the rising levels.

Learning lessons

Another committee member, Cllr Marina Chacon-Dawson, asked what the council was doing to improve absence rates, and whether it was learning lessons from other authorities.

Head of people services Lynne Donovan said sickness absence levels were “increasing in almost every local authority” and “could be attributed to a fatigued workforce”.

Caerphilly Council is in discussions with the Welsh Local Government Association and other councils on how to tackle the issue, she added.

The sickness absence figures for the current year so far show levels have “come down”, and the council is “being as proactive as we can” to drive down the rate, said Mark S Williams, the council’s executive director of corporate and regeneration.