9:07am Friday 3rd July 2009
By Telegraph & Argus
Bradford Council is right to focus its energies on cutting levels of staff sickness.
The figures are, to put it bluntly, alarming and chief executive Tony Reeves deserves credit for saying so in his letter to Council employees.
The union Unison’s realistic and constructive approach in this matter is also worthy of praise.
It is reasonable for taxpayers to expect value for their money and there is no reason why sick rates at the Council should be significantly higher than elsewhere.
After all, the stresses, strains and health risks associated with most jobs should be broadly similar, be they in the public or private sector.
If the Council can make major inroads into this problem, then that could potentially save millions of pounds in lost productivity and agency costs to cover for absent staff, money the authority can ill afford.
Such considerations can only become more pressing as the Government is more likely to tighten the purse strings rather than loosen them in the coming years.
Of course, people should not be pressurised into coming into work if they are genuinely unwell.
But at the same time, the high absenteeism of a minority must not go unchallenged.
That would just be unfair on their long-suffering colleagues who have to pick up their workload and the public who pay their wages.
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