Taking a sabbatical once conjured up a vision of university professors going off to write the book that would mark them down in history. Or students preferring the adulation of being president of the university union for a year rather than knuckling down to study.Whatever the image, it was linked to universities and had nothing to do with those whose working life was the daily grind of the office or factory floor. Back then, few of us could dream of taking time off outside the customary annual holiday entitlement. If you wanted to go off and do something else for a year, you simply quit your job. Today, however, more and more employers are appreciating the benefits to both the organisation and the individual of staff taking constructive breaks from full-time employment. And there are a number of local authorities that have not been slow to realise it.One of the many companies that have sprung up to cater for the increasing numbers of adults wanting to take a career break reports that local government officers are among the professionals looking to opt out for a short time and try something else.i-to-i.com, which specialises in recruiting for voluntary work overseas, reports that students taking gap years are now no longer the biggest sector they cater for. ‘There is now a big market for professionals with an established career who want to take time off,’ a company spokesman said. ‘They want to be away from the job while still doing something constructive, such as voluntary work in another country, which can be a definite learning curve, and without doubt the numbers of local government officers doing this is increasing.’Mary Mallett, president of the Society of Chief Personnel Officers and head of human resources at Kent CC, says the practice of allowing staff to take sabbaticals is growing among local authorities, although some have yet to appreciate the value. ‘There are now a lot of local authorities that are prepared to grant members of staff sabbaticals’, she says, ‘but there are still quite a number that don’t. There is certainly not a consistent policy on sabbaticals across local government’.She has no doubt about the value of allowing staff to move away from her local authority for a short time.‘We encourage career breaks if something concrete is going to come out of them and to this end we are very supportive.’ The authority is involved with a number of initiatives that take staff away from their normal daily duties for long periods. Social services arranges exchange visits for practitioners to visit their opposite numbers in the United States. There is an exchange secondment under which personnel can work for other organisations. ‘We have a very successful secondment arrangement with the civil service,’ she says, ‘which has proved very rewarding’.‘Where breaks make sense for the individual and the organisation, they always make the authority a much nicer place to work. It’s a good break and a good energiser. We have definite policies on sabbaticals, policies that really work.’Kent, like some other authorities, also allows staff to bank some of their annual leave, amass it over a number of years and then take up to 12 weeks break in any one year. But it is not only the big local government guns like Kent that are endorsing sabbaticals. East Lindsey, in Lincolnshire, is also supporting staff who want to take a career break/sabbatical. When a short news item appeared in a small weekly newspaper in Lincolnshire, announcing that a senior planning officer at the district council would be taking six months leave from his job, eyebrows were raised in the small towns and villages that make up this authority. But East Lindsey believes both the council and the individual benefits from the change.‘This isn’t the first time we’ve allowed this, and I’m sure it won’t be the last,’ a council spokesman told The MJ. ‘We are allowing six months unpaid leave for this officer to go travelling to extend his knowledge. We are covering the position and we expect that in six months time the officer will return refreshed and revitalised. Probably even more of a valuable asset to the organisation than they are now.’It was in February that South Oxfordshire DC decided to go down the sabbatical road. The council was undertaking job evaluation at the authority and agreed it would include sabbaticals in its employment package.Council leader, Ann Ducker, says it has already proved to be a valuable asset in recruitment. She said: ‘Because of the high cost of property prices in our area, we have great difficulty in attracting staff to the council. But by including this option in our terms and conditions, we are offering another incentive to come and work for us. It is already paying dividends in terms of recruitment.’At present, the council has three staff on sabbaticals: one planning officer is with the county council working on the new structure plan; another has taken time off for further studies; and an environmental health officer has been seconded to another council to increase his knowledge and experience.‘We’ve even given one member of staff six weeks leave because she had problems with a child care arrangement to sort out,’ says Cllr Ducker. ‘She will return secure in the knowledge that her child is being cared for properly. We are happy to have helped.’Granting sabbaticals is not new to local government, but there are councils that still have to realise that there can be benefits for both the authority and the member of staff in awarding them. It is plain that authorities allowing long periods off want something back in return and have no intention of handing out extra holidays under the guise of a sabbatical. As Mary Mallet says: ‘Whatever some may think, they were never intended for jaded executives.’