SICKNESS absence rates at Swansea Council are off target again, a report said.
During the first nine months of 2025-26 full-time equivalent workers – excluding school-based staff – took an average of 10.3 days off sick each.
The target is 10 days for the full year per employee, meaning it had been exceeded with three months of the year left.
There has been very little change from 2024-25 when the average number of days off sick per employee was 10 during the first nine months – a fraction less than currently.
The figures were in a report presented to members of the council’s governance and audit committee. It didn’t have data for the final quarter of 2025-26, which ended on March 31.
The report said sickness absence was highest in social services, education and the place – better known as the waste, environment and transport – departments, particularly among frontline roles. This can include staff understandably staying away from work to avoid passing on infections to people they help.
The report said stress-related absence remained the most prevalent reason for being off work across all departments. Wider issues facing councils include ageing workforces and increasingly complex health conditions.
Swansea Council employs around 11,200 full and part-time staff and isn’t an outlier on sickness absence.
Nine of Wales’s 22 local authorities recorded higher absence levels in 2024-25 although the report said there were variations in sickness recording practices. Caerphilly and Merthyr Tydfil councils were joint highest; Powys and Isle of Anglesey the lowest.
“Benchmarking data consistently indicates that roles such as catering, cleaning, care, and refuse tend to experience higher sickness absence rates,” said the report.
Many council employees will have lower sickness absence rates than the average because a lot of absence is due to people being off sick long term.
Lindsey Evans, Swansea’s head of human resources, organisational development and well-being, said nine out of 10 recommendations from an absence management audit report from last year have been implemented by the council. The other one – automation of sickness absence letters – was discounted as it was said to create a legal and operational risk.
She said governance had been strengthened and managerial “grip” improved but added that the authority recognised sickness absence remained “a material risk”.
The report said staff could access support more promptly now, with shorter waiting times for occupational health and stress management help.
Committee members heard the council has a confidential counselling service which has very good feedback and a recently-launched employee assistance programme.
Ms Evans was asked if the council looked at stress-related factors outside of work, to which she replied: “Yes, absolutely. Stress is usually never one thing.”
The meeting went on to hear about the use of agency staff – deployed mainly to ensure the operation of key services like waste collection could continue. Last year 65 agency workers moved into permanent roles at the council.
The report said employing agency staff cost £3.82 million between April 2025 and February this year, and added: “Agency staffing is not being used to mask absence trends and is instead being deployed in a controlled and planned way.”
