SICKNESS absence amongst Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council staff fell last year, despite Covid-19 turning 2020/21 into a year “like no other”.

At a meeting of the Executive Committee on Wednesday, July 21, councillors looked at the Finance and Performance report for the 2020/21 financial year.

Head of organisational development, Andrea Prosser explained that the number of average days lost per employee had dropped from previous years.

Ms Prosser said: “The end of year figure was 11.67 days per employee taken as result of sickness.

MORE NEWS:

“This was a decrease of 2.24 days in comparison to the year before, so an improving performance.

“If we took Covid related absence from the figure then it would actually drop to 9.98 days per employee.

“A full review of sickness absence performance will be reported to Corporate Overview Committee in the early autumn which will give a bit more context around those figures.”

Council leader, Cllr Nigel Daniels said: “We can see it’s an improving picture, but we still have some way to go.”

He asked whether a “consistently rigorous approach” was being taken across the council by managers to monitor absenteeism.

Ms Prosser said that figures were being reported quarterly to the corporate management team and that her department, organisational development, work with other department to “ensure” attendance policy is being applied.

Managing director, Michelle Morris, said: “One of the things in particular we look at that we are applying a consistent approach, in particular where there is long term absence.

“What we would really want to do is to build on the good performance we have seen in the last year and sustain that downward trend.”

Ms Morris then took the opportunity to pay tribute to staff for their efforts during the coronavirus pandemic.

Ms Morris said: “2020/21 was a year like no other.

“None of us have ever experienced that and let us hope we don’t have to again, and we are moving into slightly easier times.

“For the first quarter of the year we were severely impacted by the fact we had to stop doing what we normally do and shift to supporting our learners, communities and staff through some extremely difficult times.”

“Last summer we did try and restart services where we could and tried to keep that going through the rest of year despite the second wave last autumn/winter which was worse than the original one

“I want to pay huge respect and thanks to our staff who performed in an outstanding way throughout the last year, the council has done it’s very best to support our community during this period.”

Cllr Daniels, added: “We echo those sentiments.”

The financial side of the report showed that Blaenau Gwent ended the year with a surplus of £2.7 million on a budget of £152.1 million.

The report said that “a significant amount of Welsh Government funding compensating for additional costs & lost income,” had been received during the year.

Extra grant funding had also helped the balance sheet.

Option one for the report was unanimously approved by the Executive councillors.