DORSET Council has switched more than 2,000 of its staff to home working following Government advice – roughly half of the workforce.

The council says that many of its staff are front line workers and still need to be at their posts although measures are being taken to reduce contact with other colleagues and the public, where possible.

Social services staff are still carrying out necessary home visits, both in adult’s and children’s services, although these have been reduced, where they can be – or meetings held by phone or video conferencing.

In some cases there remains a legal obligation for social workers to carry out home visits, especially for the most vulnerable.

The authority says that it is unable to provide figures for staff self-isolating as the numbers change daily.

It says that 1,350 staff were initially moved to home working more than a week ago and by the end of last week this had risen to 2,156 officers working from home.

The authority also says that some staff are being trained to take on other roles, should the need arise, either from an increase in demand, or reduction in staffing levels because of sickness.

“We are ensuring that key frontline services are staffed, and we are training suitable employees to be redeployed to fill in when needed,” said a council spokesman.

Council offices, including town councils locally, remain closed to the public although systems are in place to make contact by email and telephone.

Dorset Council has been undergoing a process of slimming down its staff as a result of local government reorganisation which came in a year ago.

The last staff numbers, reported in public, were for November 2019, when the council had 4,669 full and part-time posts, equal to 3,665 full-time equivalents. The numbers have declined again since that figure was given, although the authority did not respond to a request to say how many people it currently employs.

Staff sick days, reported in November, averaged just over 9 days for each employee although in some departments, notably children’s and adult social services and in housing the figures were higher.  The overall figures for the authority were higher than the national local government average.