STAFF sickness rates at Dorset County Council stand at more than nine days a year, official figures show.

That figure is more than double the national average for all working people of 4.5 sick days a year.

And increased stress levels due to staffing cuts and increased workloads may be a key factor, it is claimed.

At Dorset County Council, 9.15 working days were lost per full-time employee, excluding staff employed by schools or the Dorset Waste Partnership. However, this is below the county council's target of 9.41 working days.

And the figures were even higher at the Dorset Waste Partnership, where 15.93 working days were lost per full-time employee over the course of a year.

The rates represent more than double the 4.5 days national average for public and private sector workers, recorded by the Office for National Statistics in their most recent study showing absences for 2011.

Dorset County Council employs around 9,000 staff, excluding schools.

David Higgins, of Unison, said high levels of stress amongst staff could be a key factor. “I think that's part of it and also the fact that there's been such a reduction in staffing levels that staff are now working under greater pressure than ever before. That's bound to have a knock-on effect,” he said.

“In order to make reductions, the council has not been replacing staff when they have left.

“That is obviously preferable to making redundancies but it does mean that the remaining staff have bigger and bigger workloads to cope with.

“Plus, in this climate of cuts and reductions, you never know what is coming next and there is a lot of stress and anxiety out there. It does not surprise me that sickness rates have gone up.”

Spencer Flower, Dorset County Council's spokesman for corporate resources, said the physical work carried out in adult social care can cause injury and absences which “distort the figures”.

He said: “In adult social care with lots of lifting there's a much higher case of absenteeism.

“Without that the averages would be quite a lot lower.”

Coun Flower said he hopes stress and sickness rates are not linked to staff cuts.

He said: “We are not asking less people to do the same work.

“We are trying to redesign the business so we've got less work to do.

“It would be quite wrong to expect eight people to do what 10 people have been doing.”

Coun Flower also said he hoped sickness levels at the Dorset Waste Partnership would go down as the refuse system changed from sorting recycling out at the roadside to having it all separated at the depot, a system which is being changed across the Dorset County Council area.

* Recent research by the Office of National Statistics revealed that public sector sickness rates are around 60 per cent higher in the public sector than the private sector.
In 2011, national public sector sickness absence rates were 2.6 per cent, compared to 1.6 per cent in the private sector.
The ONS said this could be down to the fact that public sector workers were more likely to be paid for time off sick than those in the private sector.
Alternatively, sickness rates are higher amongst women than men and there are more women employed in the public sector.