WORK practices at Craven District Council have changed for the better following the coronavirus lockdowns, said the authority’s chief executive.

Staff had been ‘fantastic’ in their response to the pandemic and had quickly adapted to working at home, chief executive Paul Shevlin told the council’s Select Committee.

He told the meeting: “I don’t think we will ever go back to everyone in the office, hybrid working (a mixture of home and office working) has lots of benefits.”

The meeting heard that staff absences due to sickness, both in the long and short term, had gone down for the second year.

Even in waste management, where levels of sickness are usually high, the number of absences had reduced - a trend which one councillor wondered might be due to staff receiving more praise by members of the public during the worst of the pandemic when everyone was stuck indoors.

Total absence has been above the council’s annual target - which in 2020/21 was 8.5 days lost per full time equivalent - has been above target since 2017/18 until this year, when it has ‘decreased significantly’.

In the last 12 months up to March, a total of 1,065.3 days were lost to sickness, compared to 1,872.3 in the year 2019 to 2020 - a 44 per cent decrease year on year, and 807 days less than a year ago.

Long term absence, or more than four continuous weeks, had gone down by 37 per cent, with 10 employees on long term sick compared to 22 in the previous year.

Issues identified by the council’s counselling service, Oasis, included stress and anxiety around unprecedented changes resulting from the pandemic, managing home working and isolation, and personal relationships.

A total of 1.53 days per full time equivalent were lost to short term absences, compared to 3.4 the year before. Main causes were anxiety, stress or depression and musculoskeletal issues.

In response to a question about ‘hybrid meetings’ where officers could attend virtually, Mr Shevlin said a system was in place and would be implemented as soon as possible.

Cllr Linda Brockbank said she understood councillors needed to attend meetings in person, but there was no reason officers should have to.

For a meeting of the council’s spatial planning sub-committee, held immediately before the select committee meeting, a planning legal advisor had attended from Manchester, driving there and back for a 30 minutes meeting.

Mr Shevlin said it had been planned to start hybrid meetings in August but all meetings had been cancelled, because of an outbreak of coronavirus amongst staff.

“We will do it, we just need to get everyone up to speed first. We want to make sure it is right before we put it into practice,” he said.