Staff in Blaenau Gwent Given Option to Return to Office Full Time, Says Council Chief

STAFF at Blaenau Gwent can return to work full time in the office should they wish to, a council chief has said.
At a meeting of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s Corporate Governance and Performance Scrutiny Committee on Thursday, October 12, members looked at a report on the staff’s sickness absence performance during 2022/2023.
The report explains that the number of days being lost to illness is falling, but the county borough still comes bottom of all 22 of Wales’s local authorities for staff absences.
The data shows that 15.45 days were lost to sickness per full time equivalent employee (FTE) which compares to 16.74 days in the previous year.
This also means that the council has missed its 10-day target.
Cllr Tommy Smith believed that staff working from home could be suffering from mental health and wellbeing issues.
Cllr Smith said: “It suits a lot of people but not everyone.
“This could be adding to the mental health and wellbeing as they are in effect regarded as lone workers.”
Data in the report shows that staff working from home lose the least number of days off work with 5.77 days.
Agile workers who spend time both in the office and working from home lose 11.43 days – while service based workers such as refuse collectors and home care workers lose 18.6 days.
Head of organisational development Andrea Prosser said: “We looked at the breakdown and it didn’t highlight there was an issue.”
Interim chief executive Damian McCann said: “We’ve always been very clear to staff if they feel that they want to come into the office on a daily basis that is available to them, and I appreciate for some people the change is quite impactful.”
Interim director of Social Services, Tanya Evans reminded councillors that the different ways authorities deliver services can skew the data.
Giving the example of home care, Ms Evans said that Blaenau Gwent is one of the few authorities that deliver this service in-house.
Ms Evans said: “This in an area of high sickness we are reporting on and that impacts on our figures.
“The other three (Gwent local authorities) don’t report on that as they commission it out – retaining domiciliary care in house absolutely has an impact on where we rank in Wales.”
While recognising the policy for sickness absence is fit for purpose, several councillors asked who is responsible for checking managers apply the policy correctly, and who oversees this.
Mr McCann explained that internal auditors are doing a “deep dive” into the area and that the audit will come back to committee to see what they have been “able to establish.”
Ms McCann said: “It’s a two-way process.
“We have line managers who should follow the process being for sickness in their teams.”
He explained this was to make sure that staff returned to work or in some cases – they finish working for the authority.
Mr McCann added that the job of senior staff on the Corporate Leadership Team is to “identify hotspots” and check what’s being done to address those problems.
Mr McCann said: “Any sickness puts a greater burden on those staff that remain in work.
“We recognise that and need to avoid prolonged pressure on those staff – as it will result them going sick themselves.”
Councillors agreed the report which will go on to be discussed at a Cabinet meeting in November. ‌​‌​‌​​​‍‌​‌​​‌‌‌‍‌​‌‌​​‌​‍‌​‌‌‌​‌‌‍‌​‌‌‌‌​​