WORRIED council bosses have set up a special working party to get to the bottom of a sickness record that is costing the tax payers thousands of pounds.

Government figures reveal that Chester-le-Street District Council has the second worst absenteeism record in the country with its workers averaging 17 days off ill last year.

When broken down the figures show that, with 600 employees at the council, it has lost 10,200 days to sickness last year - the equivalent of losing 28 working years.

The figures were released last week as part of the Government's 'performance indicators.'

A task force has now been set up at Chester-le-Street to get to the roots of a problem that is costing tax payers thousands of pounds a year.

Only Hampshire County Council, with an average of 17.9 days per employee, has a worse record.

In contrast, Derwentside council employees took an average of ten days sick leave and in Teesdale they took just 6.9.

Council leader Malcolm Pratt said he is concerned by the figures.

He added: "We will support any employee who is genuinely ill, but anybody found pulling the wool over our eyes will face action.

"Last Monday, at an executive meeting of the council, we agreed to set up a working party to investigate the reasons for staff sickness, headed by Keith Lambert, cabinet member for personnel.

"The working group will be looking at all departments to try to discover the reason for the high level of absenteeism."

In December, Stephen Byers, the local government minister, set out plans to label each council publicly as high-performing, striving, coasting or poor-performing.

Under-performing councils could be put into government administration while the best councils will be given extra freedoms.

Union bosses say stress-related illness brought on by too many sweeping changes are to blame for high absenteeism at many of the region's councils. Council workers in the region took an average of 11.4 days off last year.

Gill Hale, regional secretary for the largest public sector union Unison, said: "There is a lot of pressure due to constant changes and re-organisations and this has lead to stress-related illness.

"We get a lot of complaints from members put under pressure because of strategic partnerships, best value and contracting jobs out."