Gedling Borough Council health and safety teams will “get to the bottom” of why there was a higher-than-average rate of staff injuries last year.
Council figures show there were 61 reports of employee injury across the authority in 2020/21, with 12 of these put down to Covid-related incidents.
However, over the past eight years, there were an average of 47 accidents and incidents each year, making last year’s figures considerably higher than in previous years.
It is the highest number of reports since 2013/14 when there were 62 injuries, and it is almost double the 31 incidents in each of the two years between 2016 and 2018.
The figures were revealed in documents published ahead of a cabinet meeting on Thursday (November 4), with members given an update on the overall health and safety picture.
The documents did not outline any specific cases or causes of the injuries, or what constituted a Covid-related injury.
But the figures did show that, even without the coronavirus incidents, there were 49 incidents reported at the council last year.
This is the highest since 2015 and is marginally higher than the eight-year average of 47 even without Covid incidents.
Commenting on the figures, Councillor David Ellis (Lab), portfolio holder for crime reduction and community safety, said: “This demonstrates it’s important not to blame Covid for everything.
“At this stage, we could easily fall into saying ‘last year was a strange year, everything was Covid-related, so there’s nothing to learn from that’.
“We mustn’t lose sight that there are some underlying issues.”
The data is coupled with a formula, named Accident Incidents Rate (AIR), which quantifies the number of incidents compared with the average number of employees.
Documents state there were, on average, 480 employees working at the authority last year.
To calculate the overall formulas, council officers multiply the number of injuries by 1,000 and divide the average employee number.
With the Covid incidents, the 61 injuries gave the council an AIR of 127. This figure was 102 without the Covid injuries.
For the previous four years, the AIR was 88, 82, 51 and 49, showing a marginal year-on-year rise in the rate of staff injuries at the council.
Grant Ilett, health and safety officer at the council, told the meeting: “[The 61 figure] was quite an increase on the average, but when you take out the number of accidents involving Covid-related injury reports, it’s not far off the average.
“But in terms of the accident incidence rate, it’s gradually been increasing year on year. If you remove the Covid-effect from last year, it’s still slightly increased.
“There’s quite a bit more work going on behind the scenes to get to the bottom of why this is, and to put some suggestions to management and SLT as to how we can address this moving forward.”
