TOWN Hall bosses have been given £35,000 to tackle staff sickness levels which are going from bad to worse.

The money, a Government grant, will be spent on a range of action plans to stem the tide of absence.

The total number of days lost through sickness last year among local authority employees was 96,120, or 11.2 days each. This is up from 10.4 the previous year, and officers say the figures for the last six years show no signs of improvement.

The rates vary widely between jobs and across departments, with the three main causes given as stress, colds and flu, and back-related problems.

Personnel chiefs have drawn up a detailed, long-term strategy focusing on what they call a work/life balance. This will look at the possibilities of having more home working and flexible working hours.

Other measures include stress counselling, redeployment, and maybe employing a physiotherapist. Managers are still considering whether to offer staff anti-flu injections.

So-called "white collar" staff take 10.6 days off each, with officers in social services and housing notching up 16 days.

Manual workers average 14.8 sick days each, the highest recorded in transport services (24.7), engineers (23.6) and mechanics (23).

Teachers, meanwhile, log an average of 8.3 sick days each.