Falkirk Council staff absence rates soar

While changes have been made to allow more staff to work from home, many can’t and the council has been forced to cut back to providing essential services only.

The high numbers of staff unable to work include those who are sick – either with coronavirus or for other reasons – but also people such as pregnant women or those who have underlying health conditions who are self-isolating and unable to work from home.

Other staff have been affected by school or office closures.

However, hundreds of council staff have volunteered to help out in different departments to help keep vital services running.

Councillor Cecil Meiklejohn, Leader of Falkirk Council said: “We are running essential services with our workforce who are able to work.

“To do this and to ensure the safety of our workforce, we have, where possible and appropriate, successfully put in place a range of mobile and flexible working arrangements.

“This has enabled a number of employees to deliver services from their home.

“We clearly have a number of service delivery areas where it is not possible for them to be delivered from home.

“Our workforce is doing an excellent job of keeping these services running and showing flexibility where possible.

“We also have 369 employees who have volunteered to assist with essential services where this is required, to ensure they continue to run.”

A council spokesperson confirmed that current absence level is 17.78 per cent, which compares to 4.42 per cent for the period April 2018 to March 2019.

However, they said they would caveat this figure as there are still some areas of the Council where they do not yet have fully up to day information.