SICKNESS absence among York council workers is still "unacceptably high", an authority report has revealed.

But City of York Council bosses say initiatives to reduce the amount of time workers spend on the sick are beginning to bear fruit.

A report to Tuesday's authority personnel committee reveals the project levels of absence in 2005 to 2006 is expected to be lower than 12 days per full time equivalent employee - a modest improvement on the 13.5 days in 2004 to 2005.

That was despite the Evening Press reporting, in October, how the council had declared war on its army of sick workers.

We revealed the authority's 7,500-strong workforce had one of the worst track records for absenteeism in the country - costing taxpayers more than £10 million a year.

A series of tough proposals were outlined by council leader Steve Galloway to tackle the growing crisis including staff undergoing medical tests and extending a controversial scheme which sees workers contact nurses instead of their bosses to ring in sick.

The council report, written by human resources corporate adviser Chris Tissiman, stresses the need to develop an "attendance culture".

"The council's traditional approach to sickness absence needs to be reconsidered," he writes. "While we must retain the facility to deal with sickness absence when it occurs, such actions should sit alongside more proactive measures and within an overall framework designed to enable attendance."

Unison chiefs have told the council it wants to work with the authority to identify the root causes of sickness absence and develop measures to tackle the causes.

Ken Green, the council's head of human resources, said: "There are some positive signs and we hope that this year's absence rate will be lower than the last. Nonetheless, the level remains unacceptably high and we will continue to work to reduce it further."

Coun Martin Bartlett, chair of the council's personnel committee, said: "Recent initiatives to reduce sickness absence are beginning to bear fruit. We will persevere with these.

"At the same time we will address concerns expressed by the unions with regard to other factors affecting attendance; to this end the joint consultative committee will meet on Thursday with the objective of reviewing the City of York's attendance policy in the light of best practice elsewhere."

Updated: 09:47 Saturday, March 04, 2006