INITIATIVES to cut staff sickness at Worcester City Council appear to be working.

Staff are having fewer days off work because of illness, according to a new report, although the council missed last year's target for sickness absence.

At the latest cabinet meeting, members discussed the findings of the performance management report for April to June, which revealed employees had taken 2.1 days off sick, compared with 2.34 days for this period last year.

Councillor Barry Mackenzie-Williams said the council had just missed last year's target of 10 days.

"We are hopeful that we will indeed make the target for this year of 8.9 days (per employee)," he said.

"It's a challenging target - you can never tell what's going to happen.

"There are floods, the flu and all sorts of things which can knock you off course."

Coun David Tibbutt said: "The staff should be congratulated. I think that's a fantastic achievement."

In February 2006 your Worcester News revealed the authority had set aside £30,000 to cut sick leave after a report revealed the average worker had 13 days off per year due to illness, compared with 10 in other authorities and seven in private sector.

These Initiatives included giving employees access to a 24-hour helpline which offered counselling, training on how to deal with harassment, bullying and stress, physiotherapy sessions, alcohol gel washes to help prevent the spread of germs and flu jabs.

Following the meeting Penny West, personnel manager at the council said it was clear these measures were paying dividends. "Employee absence levels are consistently falling and we are creating a healthier working environment and supporting employees where there are problems," she said.

"Any expenditure has been more than offset by savings on sick pay and increased productivity and I am pleased that we are well on track to beat our target for this year on the amount of sick leave."

The report also revealed the council had some problems at its Customer Service Centre.

It states: "The 69 per cent of calls answered within 15 seconds is low by the standards of responses corporately."

It also revealed there had been a high turnover of staff, resulting in vacancies.

However, the document shows a high level of customer satisfaction, at 97 per cent.