TEACHER sick days at schools in Dumbarton, the Vale and Clydebank have hit their highest levels, a new report reveals.

Stress has again become the top reason for teachers taking days off and the absence levels are costing the council hundreds of thousands of pounds.

In a report set to go before West Dunbartonshire Council’s education committee tomorrow, the council’s education chief Terry Lanagan said absence levels in nurseries and special schools are higher than in other areas of the service.

The report reveals sick days for both teaching staff and support staff have increased from July to September compared to the same period last year, support staff by 59 per cent and and teachers by five per cent, although both have improved since April-June this year.

Mr Lanagan said: “ It would appear that the 23.3 per cent improvement shown for teachers in 2013/14 has been reversed and we are now seeing absence figures for teachers at their highest levels.”

He added: “However, it is important to note that there has been work carried out to improve absence reporting across the department as we moved over to the HR21 system. This could account for an increase in the absence statistics as there is more accuracy associated with the new automated process, as compared to the previous manual returns.”

The report reveals sick days between April and June in the education department cost £385,700 – not taking in indirect costs such as overtime, loss of productivity and reduced team performance.

For teachers, the majority of absence between July and September – 26 per cent – was down to stress, 21 per cent was due to minor illness and musco-skeletal conditions were behind 13 per cent of absence.

This has risenincreased by 10 per cent in a year and is also an increase from the previous quarter in which 21 per cent of absence was due to stress.

Mr Lanagan said the the drop in the previous quarter “illustrated that the actions taken to address stress for teaching staff have been effective” but said the recent increase shows a “here is still a requirement to focus on stress within the department and to promote the stress workshops that are scheduled in the coming months.”

The council has taken a range of actions in a bid to tackle sick days in the education department, including holding management masterclasses, running stress workshops, offering employee counselling, providing moving and handling training in nurseries and bringing in an updated attendance management policy.