Editorial: ​Shocking sick note culture in Northern Ireland’s councils

The shocking - and rising - levels of sick leave in Northern Ireland's councils are symptomatic of a worrying culture within parts of our public sector.

A report from the Audit Office this week also served as a reminder that a decade after sweeping reforms to how local services are delivered, we still don't know whether it has resulted in any savings for hard-pressed ratepayers.

On average, staff in NI's local authorities are off on sick leave for 17 working days each year - almost a month (which is around 20 working days). It is far worse than in the rest of the public sector.

Addressing staff absences is not impossible, it is an issue which has been successfully dealt with in other public services. Yet in most local councils, it is going in the wrong direction.

Anywhere else, the rising absence levels - and the associated costs - would be a key political issue. Instead, we see our councillors fixating on all manner on issues outside their remit, such as the war in Gaza.

Councillors seem more comfortable with raising Palestinian or rainbow flags above civic buildings than getting on with the day job of providing low cost and efficient public services.

Services such as planning are slow, with the majority of applications not being considered within the legal timeframe.

The Audit Office report which set out in detail the scale of the problem with staff absences, also points out that we still don't know whether the reduction in the number of councils in 2015 has saved ratepayers any money. Efforts to find out have been hampered by a lack of standardised reporting across councils. Councils must – as one councillor says in today’s News Letter – get a grip on this situation. It is not good enough to expect hardworking ratepayers to subsidise both a sick note culture and failing services.