by David Taylor, Councillor for St Edward's, Havering
Havering Council (East London) has just published its latest figures around staff sickness, and the report shows a mental health crisis that is costing millions.
The report shows that over 50 per cent of Havering staff have taken sick leave in the last year, with 27 per cent of the absence being due to stress, depression, fatigue, anxiety or mental health. Worryingly, just 83 of Havering’s staff have taken up the offer of an occupational health referral, the lowest number for any London borough
Figures released in the report show that the cost of sickness absence in Havering Council is over £5 million, at a time when the council is reporting a potential deficit of £75m in 2025/2026. To highlight the size of that £5 million cost, the council tax increase in 2024 brought in an extra £7.5m, so a majority of that increase has immediately been lost.
Whilst the figures are high it hasn’t always been this bad. In 2022, the last time Havering released these figures, the cost was just under £3 million. The average number of days taken sick has risen by 8 per cent, whilst the average for other Outer London boroughs has dropped by 6.3 per cent.
There’s something very wrong happening in Havering Town Hall.
But this problem isn’t unique to Havering, it is simply that Havering’s precarious financial position highlights the impact more clearly. It is worth asking whether it is Havering’s financial position that is perhaps the cause of the problem.
Greenwich Council had close to 60 per cent of its staff taking sick leave in the last year. That’s set to cost them close to £6 million. In 2024 Greenwich announced a budget deficit of £27m after £33m of cuts.
Hounslow has the fourth highest sickness rate in London, at close to 60 per cent, and they have announced a £30 million deficit.
So, there appears to be a correlation between under-pressure local authorities and high levels of sickness, and this is putting huge financial pressure onto already overstretched town halls. What that means, of course, is that there will be yet more pressure to raise council tax and more pressure to turn to desperate and punitive measures, such as the scrapping of the single person discount.
Last year, staff sickness cost Tower Hamlets over £8 million, and Camden and Hackney nearly £7 million each. Only Bexley and Brent have a staff sickness bill of less than £1m a year. A conservative estimate, based on Havering’s report, is that staff sickness is costing London councils as much as £90 million a year. That’s 12 per cent of the £700 million collective deficit reported by London councils for 2025/6.
This is an unsustainable position and a crisis, which is going to spiral, and with the cost to the taxpayer going up as pressure on staff continues to do so.
Diving further into the details for Havering shines more light on how big an issue this is. Staff in the Environment department (parks and street cleaning) are averaging 15 days sick a year. Ageing Well, the department responsible for adult social care, has an average of 14 days a year off sick. The Legal and Governance department are clocking in over 16 days a year off, with 20 per cent of staff on long-term sickness.
There is, at the heart of Havering, a deep and dangerous problem.
A few years back I was diagnosed with PTSD, depression and anxiety. Like many of those diagnosed with the conditions, I carry some shame about the label as well as some denial. I think about how a childhood friend lost his legs in Afghanistan, and I feel guilt that me with my cosy office job can be placed into a similar category mental health wise.
It takes a lot to accept that one needs support, or to understand what one is experiencing. This is why the most worrying number in Havering’s report is the number of people taking up an occupational health referral.
Going to therapy helped me to learn to take control and understand my own mind. Coupled with a fantastically compassionate employer, who supported me taking the time to get help, I only took a single sick day in the last year.
But this isn’t happening in Havering. Only 83 staff, the lowest number of all London Boroughs, took up the offer. Compare this to neighbouring Barking, where 495 staff are being referred, and we discover that their staff are taking an average of 7.4 days sick vs Havering’s 10.8. That puts Barking as the 5th lowest in London and with a sickness bill over £2 million lower than Havering.
What is clear from this report is that local authorities have a serious problem with sickness and that the situation is unsustainable. Those offering support to staff seem to do better and drive down costs.
There is little doubt in my mind that local government funding is putting astonishing pressure on staff. That pressure is not always being handled well and that’s causing further costs to the taxpayer.
I’ve always argued that local authority funding needs reviewing. We need to scale back on the size and scope of local government and deliver better value for money for taxpayers. However, alongside that, we also need our local government sector to take a real grip of whatever is going on with staff sickness.
Public sector sickness absence has always been higher than in the private sector. Analysis by the TaxPayers’ Alliance found that in 2022 the public sector sickness rate was 3.6 per cent while the private sector rate was 2.3 per cent.
Our public sector workers are sick, and at a higher rate than those in the private sector. This sickness is costing the taxpayer tens of millions in London, and likely tens of millions more across the country. It comes at a time when taxes are going up and up.
Now is not the time to bloat the public sector further, pumping in billions more without asking for any change.
Whoever is running HR in the public sector needs to look to the private sector for inspiration. We can’t afford for them not to. Our town hall staff deserve the same level of care and support seen in the private sector. But taxpayers also deserve the same levels of performance.