Sick Note Council

Nearly one in five staff illnesses at Cornwall Council during the past year has been due to depression, anxiety and stress. On average, each of the 21,000 workers was off sick for nearly seven days during the most recent quarter. Good job they weren't all sick at the same time, but that's still a lot of days lost due to illness.

The monthly performance monitoring report going to Cabinet next week should cause councillors considerable concern. Not just the headline status ("much worse than target") but also the trend ("worsened.")

The report says:

"Trend graph clearly shows performance started falling after July, although it only became worse than target in November (and has continued to worsen since")

Comparison with other local authorities shows Cornwall is actually mid-table and when you drill down in to the detail you find:

"When compared with the former county council performance data the council again compares favourably until Quarter 3."

The statistics alone cannot tell the story, as the report acknowledges:

"It is notable that this year the increase in sickness absence in Quarter 3 is much more pronounced, and potentially cannot entirely be explained by normal seasonal variations. It may be due to a number of factors such as the swine flu pandemic and stressors such as the current financial climate and the impact of transition and transformation on employees."

Long term sickness accounts for 59% of all working days lost. Resolving these cases would be the single most effective way to improve the statistics. Or move the goalposts. As as the report says:

"It may therefore be necessary to review existing targets."