Agenda and minutes

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting, which was Session 3 of the Board’s Inquiry into Sickness Absence Management, and in particular the following witnesses:-

Professor Dame Carol Black, National Director of Health and Work, Chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and Chairman of the Nuffield Trust;

Steve Sumner, Local Government Employers’ (LGE) National Health and Safety Policy Adviser;

Councillor Richard Brett, Alternate Leader of the Council and Executive Member for Central and Corporate Functions;

Chris Ingham, Deputy Head of Human Resources, Leeds City Council.

To declare any personal / prejudicial interests for the purpose of Section 81 (3) of the Local Government Act 2000 and paragraphs 8 to 12 of the Members Code of Conduct.

No declarations of interest were made.

To receive any apologies for absence.

An apology for absence from the meeting was submitted on behalf of Councillor Jane Dowson.

To receive and consider the attached report of the Head of Scrutiny and Member Development.

Further to Minute No 18, 8^th September 2008, and Minute No 40, 3^rd November 2008, the Head of Scrutiny and Member Development submitted a background report, appended to which were the agreed Terms of Reference for the Board’s Inquiry.

Professor Dame Carol Black and Steve Sumner were invited to make brief introductory statements to the Board, following which the meeting was thrown open to Members’ questions.

Professor Dame Carol Black presented a resume of her national report for the Government, ‘Working for a Healthier Tomorrow Strategy’, published in March 2008.  Her report had  been commissioned to look at the working age population and to address issues such as ill-health absences and worklessness, and the underlying reasons behind the statistics. The two main drivers for the report had been:-

(a)  The human cost to the individual of not being in work, in terms of self-worth, personal achievement and empowerment, people’s ability to function fully as a member of their family and of wider society, the positive benefits of a healthy work/life balance and the knock-on effects, both physical and material, on children growing up in families where worklessness was a factor, and

(b)  The wider economic and social effects of people not being in work.  It was estimated that the costs to society in terms of lost production and benefits was £100bn per annum – the equivalent of the costs of running the NHS

Her review had looked at three broad areas –

1  How to maintain people in work when they had a job, and what to invest in in that respect;

2  What was the cause and effect of the repeated sick note scenario, and what might be done in this respect to prevent people ending up long-term unemployed?

3  The need to reduce the number of benefit recipients and get people back into work – the ‘Pathways to Work’ initiative etc – and what was working and what was not.  40% of benefit recipients were categorised as having some form of mental illness – often mild anxiety and depression – and unless tackled this could lead to a formal classification of mentally ill, which was often not warranted.

Several important factors had been identified during the course of the review

·  The importance of line management in spotting and tackling absence issues, early intervention being crucial to avoid matters becoming more serious or long-term.  Often supervisors were appointed for their technical skills or expertise, rather than their managerial skills, and this needed addressing;

·  Small companies were less enthusiastic regarding their role and responsibility in these matters – they felt it was not worthwhile investing in remedies and needed to be convinced of the business case for implementing changes. Much assistance was available on-line for small businesses;

·  The need to tackle the sickness culture in this country, and to move away from ‘sick’ notes to ‘fit’ notes i.e. instead of automatically assuming that a person was not fit for work, or their normal job, because they could  ...  view the full minutes text for item 69.

Monday, 2 February 2009 at 10.00 a.m. (Pre-meeting for all Members at 09.30 a.m.)

Monday 2^nd February 2009 at 10.00 am (Pre-meeting 9.30 am)

The meeting concluded at 4.00 pm