Concerns over the cost of rising absences at South Ayrshire Council have been raised.
Independent councillor Bob Shields, chair of the service and performance panel, said that a 50 per cent rise in the costs of absences over the last year was a ‘shot across the bows’ for the council.
He also quizzed a senior HR officer about staff who may have a pattern of absences as a result of ‘external factors’ such as the day after football games or following annual leave.
Cllr Shields said he had been on an absence working group at a newspaper he was employed by and said external factors were an issue there.
He said: “For example, half the newspaper's staff didn’t turn up the day after an Old Firm game, absenteeism was up after T in the Park, others took a few days before school holidays to cash in on cheaper flights, Christmas and new year was a spike.
“Mondays tended to be a spike after weekends.
“Do you have any external factors recorded, do you keep note of any trends like this?"
HR officer Wendy Wesson said: “We don’t report that information just now. That happens on a case-by-case basis, where if an employee is progressing along various stages of absence, there will be a detailed analysis of their absence.
“We can look at patterns of absence, such as Mondays and Fridays, before and after annual leave. If there are big events, we are able to pick those up. ”
Cllr Shields also noted that absences cost the council £3.8 million – a 50 per cent increase on the previous year.
He said: “In the private sector, if a managing director saw that, they would be very upset.
“Think this is a shot across our bows; there are issues with absence. Need to keep a close eye on it.”
As previously reported, sickness saw South Ayrshire Council employees off work for the combined equivalent of 125 years over the course of just 12 months.
This did not include any absences for Covid or self-isolation.
The annual report also shows that teacher absences have sky-rocketed by more than 70 per cent while general workforce absence rose by a quarter.
It shows that a total of 45,687 days, or 9.59 days per employee, had been ‘lost’ because of sickness absence between April 2021 and March 2022.
This was a rise of 13 per cent on the previous year’s rate of 7.41 days per employee.
The vast majority (35,707 days or 78 per cent) were long-term absences of more than four weeks. The remaining 9,980 days lost (22 per cent) were short term.
As expected, there are significant variations in the absence rates in different services.
Teachers make up around a quarter of the council’s workforce and saw an increase in absences from 3.1 days lost per employee in 2020/21 to 5.46 days in 2021/22, the highest since 2015/16.
The rate for South Ayrshire’s workforce, minus teachers, is 10.59 days lost per employee, the highest since 2013/14.
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