Coventry City Council to act amid sky high staff sickness rate

It was branded "disappointing" by a councillor



Coventry City Council workers take almost 50% more sick days on average than the standard English civil servant. In 2020 and 2021, Coventry council's full-time employees took an average of 12.7 days of whereas the rate for English councils was 8.8.

The authority's chief people officer Susanna Newing admitted at a meeting of the Finance and Corporate Services Scrutiny Board the council must "strengthen our work in that area". She told the meeting that three departments - adult social care, children's services and streetscene - have particularly high rates of illness.

Reasons include musculoskeletal problems, stresses that come with certain jobs, industrial action and workplace culture. Long Covid is also having an impact and "reasonable adjustments" for workers could be a potential solution, she said.

The council plans to introduce more health and wellbeing help for workers, including early mental health assessments and maternity support. But Councillor Tim Sawdon described the figures as "pretty disappointing," pointing out that sickness rates across the UK went down in the pandemic.

The Conservative councillor also wondered whether the council's targets for reducing sick days could be more ambitious due to the rise of home-working. But Ms Newing responded that while half the council's workforce have the ability to work from home, only "a small minority" are full homeworkers as many need to go into the community for their jobs.

Having looked into this issue over many years and across many industries, there is one constant reason. Sh*t management. Take it or leave it, but that's the bottom line.

Unfortunately, it now takes a very brave person to speak out and take action. I doubt CCC has that person within its ranks.