Stress-related illness brought on by too many sweeping changes are to blame for high absenteeism at many of the North-East councils, union bosses claimed yesterday.

New government figures show that council staff in the region took an average of 11.4 days off ill last year, with Chester-le-Street District Council the second worst in the country with 17.

With 600 employees at the council that amounts to 10,200 days lost to sickness - the equivalent of losing 28 working years.

Nationally, each worker now takes an average of ten working days off sick every year - 25 per cent higher that staff from private companies.

But even among public sector workers, the region's councils fare poorly. At Durham Constabulary police officers and support staff take an average of 11.2 days off ill a year while teachers in the county only take 6.5.

Workers at County Durham and Darlington Health Authority only take an average of 1.5 days a year.

The Northern Echo spoke to Gill Hale, regional secretary for the public service union Unison, about the worrying trend. Lynne Robson, Unison's head of local government was, ironically, off work ill.

Ms Hale said: "I'm not at all surprised by the high level of absenteeism in local government at the moment.

"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 about pressure they are under from strategic partnerships, best value and contracting jobs out. And talk about having council league tables only adds to the pressure.

"NHS employees for instance often get the media attention about pay and conditions, but people forget the constant demands on council workers. Also, there is not necessarily cash coming in."

With the second worst record in the country - only Hampshire County Council is worse - Chester-le-Street has set up a special working party to look at the problem.

Council leader Malcolm Pratt said: "We will support any employee who is genuinely ill, but anybody found pulling the wool over our eyes will face action.

"We have set up a working party to investigate the reasons for staff sickness, headed by our cabinet member for personnel."

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

Underperforming councils councils could be put into government administration while the best will be given extra freedoms.