They don’t like Mondays

SHETLAND Islands Council is losing £3.5 million in lost production due to staff being off sick.

Thursday’s meeting of the SIC’s audit and standards committee heard that staff, excluding teachers, take an average of 12.2 days off a year due to sickness, 12 percent higher than the national average.

Councillors called on managers to enforce council policy which require that “return to work” interviews are carried out with all absentees. At present only two out of three of those off with sickness are being interviewed.

Statistics also show that the rate of sickness among council staff is highest on Mondays.