Staffing problems at Warwickshire County Council continue to increase amid rising sickness absence and trouble recruiting. 

Performance data reported to the county's cabinet – the panel of Conservative councillors in charge of major service areas – this week showed that full-time employees are currently taking an average of 10.24 days off sick per year.

That number is above the council's target of eight, up from 9.16 from this time last year and above the 9.86 that it stood at in the 2023-24 end-of-year report three months ago.

Stress and mental health continues to be a problem – it was the reason given for 15,001 lost staff days in the last financial year.

Added to that is an increase in staff vacancies over the past three months, something that is exacerbated by what is described in the report as a "vacancy freeze for non-business critical posts to help mitigate the council's financial pressures" – a £27 million overspend is anticipated on delivering services in the financial year 2024-25. 

The report says rising sickness is "attributed mainly to specific service issues" in business support, customer contact, children and families and social care "with stress and mental health the most significant cause".

"This increasing trend is in line with the national picture across both public and private sectors," continues the report. 

"Targeted action in priority service areas to address increasing absence levels aims to stabilise the absence figure and then reduce this trend. 

"To address current workforce challenges, we have identified several priority actions which include continuing adoption of strategic workforce planning across the organisation, undertaking robust action on sickness absence supported by an attendance action plan and maintaining a focus on wellbeing, underpinned by our recently relaunched approach to wellbeing and support available."

Children's and social care services have experienced the biggest problems with recruitment with highways, planning, legal and finance also hit. The council is seeking "creative solutions".

The county's portfolio holder for customer and transformation Councillor Yousef Dahmash (Con, Hillmorton) said staff absence "continues to be a challenge… but officers are acutely aware of that and work is ongoing".

Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Jerry Roodhouse was concerned that financial cutbacks could make the situation worse.

"I know there has been a lot of work around it but with the (financial) pressures we talked about earlier, there are going to be more pressures coming down the line and that potentially puts more stress on," he said.

"The more we can do as an organisation in supporting staff, the better. We need to do it. 

"It is something we need to keep the spotlight on because we talked about the doom and gloom (of the financial pressures). When you are working within it, that cannot help this situation."