Council staff in shock sickness rate

??Hundreds of council staff in the West Midlands are taking time off sick and blaming stress or psychological illnesses, new figures reveal today.

Council bosses have vowed a clampdown on sickness absence, which is far higher in the public sector than in the private.

The cost to taxpayers in the West Midlands is around £5 million in missed wages. Sandwell Council has had 718 people take time off sick for stress, depression and anxiety in 2009/10 compared with 807 the year before and 732 in 2007/08.

Staffordshire County Council lost around 25,000 days to sickness for stress, depression or anxiety each year for the past three years and 13,924 days so far in 2010/11.

Around 700 people a year are taking time off sick with psychological illnesses.

Staffordshire's human resources chief Councillor Mark Winnington said: "We need to combat sickness absence in general to improve the efficiency of the council, and have a number of measures in place to support managers in supervising attendance at work and the employee through the period of absence and their return to work."

Stafford Borough Council paid £79,000 in sickness wages to 49 staff with psychological illnesses since 2007. In Lichfield, 53 staff were paid £40,795.

Wyre Forest District Council paid out £102,000 to 71 staff while South Staffordshire Council paid £36,500 to 41 staff.

Cannock Chase Council had 31 employees on statutory sick pay last year for psychological illness, costing £89,178. So far this financial year, 22 staff have had to take time off.

Wolverhampton City Council staff each took an average of 11.4 days sick last year — the equivalent of 199 years over the entire 6,400-strong workforce.

Last year Sandwell's 13,759 workers called in sick 111,860 times, at an average of 8.13 days each.

The average of 7.33 days taken by Dudley's 10,535 staff saw 77,221 days lost to sickness in the nine months up to January. At Walsall Council, the 7,425 full-time equivalent staff racked up 40,095 sickies in six months.