THE timing could hardly have been any less subtle. For just as council tax payers in Blackburn and Darwen were told that their bills are to rise by nearly nine per cent, they also learned they were paying for droves of town hall employees to skive.

And what else can it be called when the council's sick leave bill of £4 million a year (how many holes in the road would that amount mend?) is swollen by a shocking absenteeism record of nearly a fortnight per employee per year?

In some departments they are taking 22 days off sick on top of their holidays.

Swinging the lead must be a big factor, considering the lower absenteeism rates of other councils providing similar services. But if the nature of the job cannot be blamed, what can?

If you ask me, it is the very culture that prevails in the public sector, riddled as it still is by reactionary trade unionists and timid managers. Look at absenteeism levels in the private sector -- and the revealing claim that sickness among employees of Capita, the firm which took over many of Blackburn with Darwen's town hall services, averages just half a day a year.

The difference is, surely, that bosses in the pay-your-way real world aren't a soft touch and can't afford to be.

Perhaps Capita should be given the rest of the council's work, saving taxpayers the best part of £4 million.

Meantime, incredibly, the council is to spend £70,000 on a "review" of pay and sickness and "stress" has been cited as a possible cause of the time-off plague.

Stress? I thought Blackburn with Darwen had dealt with that ages ago -- and in keeping with the tradition of chucking money at this lark.

Remember how, back in 1997, it set up a £40,000 stress counselling service because so many employees were going off sick because of the alleged pressures of work? Fat lot good that did, didn't it?

It sounds to me like the advice they have been getting is to not bother coming into work if they don't feel like it.