According to the CIPD’s Absence Management Report 2015 that on average incidences of sickness amongst public sector workers are now 50% higher than in the private sector.

Whereas the average level of employee absence in the private sector is 5.8 days and in the public sector 8.7 days per employee, although it’s slightly lower when looking just at local government workers at 8 days.

The financial costs associated with absence are also higher in the public sector. The median annual absence cost per employee is £554, however, in the private sector this falls to £400 and in the public sector rises to £789.

While I’m not able to speculate as to exactly why public bodies such as councils consistently have a much higher rate of absence, I do know that the taxpayer cannot afford our current sickness absence bill.

It is likely that the pressures of living through the age of austerity and government cuts will have had their impact on absentee levels, as this can often lead to fewer people having to take on more responsibility, especially during recruitment freezes.

Indeed the CIPD report highlighted that stress absence was one of the top five reasons for absence in the public sector, higher than in any other sector.

Tackling rising sickness absence is something all organisations need to do and getting to the root causes of why it’s happening is imperative. One solution is using a strategic absence management system instead paper based forms and spread sheets, which many councils still use.

With such a system an organisation can keep track of which employees are in work or not, who is on holiday and who might be working flexibly. These systems can also help monitor sickness levels.

Organisations that absence management systems can expect to see almost an immediate reduction in sickness absence of 20 to 30%, simply because there is a formal system for recording and managing it. It is also easy to pick up patterns of sickness and intervene if necessary to find out why someone is having a lot of time off sick

This is reduced even further when supported by occupational health involvement, return to work interviews, improving employee engagement (and thus morale) and undertaking regular policy reviews.

Organisations should also have in place wellness initiatives as part of their wider strategic approach to tacking absence. Whilst many implement these during periods of organisational change, which is admirable, they need to be part of the everyday working environment no matter what is happening.

High levels of sickness absence are preventable and can be addressed economically by taking these few simple measures. A formal absence management system together with health and wellness support could go a long way in tacking sickness absence – which is good for the individuals well as the nation’s pockets.

Adrian Lewis is an absence management expert of Activ Absence