This survey from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development reveals that sickness continues to hit public sector employers harder than the private services sector. The gap between the number of sick days taken in the two sectors has widened by more than half a day since last year’s survey. Average absence levels in the public sector stand at 10.3 days per employee per year compared to 6.8 days in private services sector. The cost of absence in the public sector is 645 pounds per employee each year, rising to 1060 pounds within the health sector.Stress is one of the leading and growing causes of absence in the public sector with around a half of organisations citing stress as a leading cause of long-term absence for non-manual workers. Meanwhile, more than four in ten public sector organisations say that their stress levels have increased during the past year. Absence levels are highest in local government and the health sector. There are a high proportion of particularly challenging public facing roles in the public sector such as police, healthcare, teaching, and social services which contribute to higher than average levels of absence.
The Government will be told today that the solution to the shortage of nurses is under its nose. With the Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt due to speak at a conference in London organised by the biggest health union, UNISON, the union is publishing a study which shows 84 per cent of the 400 healthcare assistants at the event would like to train as nurses.UNISON says, though, that health care staff cannot afford a 50 per cent drop in their salaries to live on student bursaries and it is calling for a system of professional secondments to encourage them to take up nurse training.
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Local planning authorities have been told they will need to work together and be more flexible to the needs of the housing market. Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, said the planning system needed a ‘shake up’ so it could respond better to market demand for more homes and to help more first time buyers afford their own properties.He has announced a new consultation, ‘Planning for Housing Provision’, which will ensure that in housing growth areas, such as the Thames Gateway, the system would be able to respond to demand by making appropriate land available more quickly. At the same time a second consultation is to be carried out on a new Greenbelt Direction to provide stronger planning controls in Greenbelt areas, including closer scrutiny of applications and the referral of significant developments to the Secretary of State.
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