Falkirk Council: £11 million cost of staff absence as over 100,000 days lost

Members of Falkirk Council’s audit committee heard on Monday that during the period July 2022 to September 2023, a total of 105,672 working days were lost to sickness absence throughout Falkirk Council, at a cost of around £10.69 million.

That means an average of 248 Falkirk Council employees were off sick every single day for that period, at a cost of around £25,093 per day.

At the meeting, Councillor Anne Hannah asked if the reason for such a high figure was known and what actions were being taken.

Falkirk Council’s director of transformation, communities and corporate Services, Karen Algie, told members that they were aware that sickness absence levels have been rising and that this is the case for local authorities across the whole of Scotland.

She said: “It’s not unique to us – but that doesn’t detract from the fact that we need to do our best to help manage this and do whatever we can to support employees and ensure that they attend work.”

She said the council’s corporate management team had considered the issue in November and looked at ways to reduce sickness levels, including employing temporary HR staff to support managers.

Councillor Sarah Patrick said she was surprised to see the figure of £10.69 million.

She said: “When we consider the savings we are being asked to make of £10,000 here or a couple of hundred thousand there – that’s such a massive amount.

“If we can pull that down that’s going to make a great difference to our budgetary difficulties perhaps, so it really is a very important area.”

Falkirk Council’s chief executive, Kenneth Lawrie, agreed that sickness absence is something the council “really needs to focus on”.

He said that cost was particularly acute in areas where the council needs to bring in staff to cover.

He said: “In some areas of the council we simply deal with the lesser number of employees we have as a result of sickness absence but there is a real issue where we need to bring in agency or other staff to cover.

“It is a really important area for our focus and it is something we are now looking at.”

Members heard that policies and procedures are in place but the internal audit had found some errors in recording sickness absences.

The audit found there was a lack of documentation to confirm that managers had maintained regular contact with staff on long-term sickness absence and, on occasion, limited evidence to support an absence, for example, no self-certificate form.

Members heard that a sickness absence monitoring regime has been established.

Staff who meet certain triggers will be subject to absence review meetings and periods of attendance monitoring.

The overall sickness absence target of four per cent has has not been met in recent years, and Mr Lawrie said that quarterly reports covering absence levels, reasons, and options to address high absence rates are now being requested by senior management.