A TOTAL of £2 million has been spent on supply teachers to plug gaps in Inverclyde schools.

Education bosses have had to find cover in the classrooms for 22,453 days over the last five years, the Tele can reveal.

Inverclyde Council bosses have pulled out all the stops to drastically reduce sickness absence across the authority’s entire 4,400 strong workforce, which was previously highlighted as having one of the worst records in the country.

But despite this improvement the local authority has still lost nearly 90,000 days to sickness across its non-teaching workforce since 2014.

The cost of providing supply teachers in primary and secondary schools peaked in 2011/12 at £500,000.

But as budget cuts began to bite in the years since the figure fell to £336,229 in 2015/16.

The number of days lost to sickness for teachers during 2014/15 was 5,340 and the latest figures, for 2016/17, show that dropped to 4,678 – a fall of 12 per cent.

On average teachers are off five days a year, a fall from a peak of almost nine and now below the national average of 5.5 days.

Sickness rates for the rest of the council workforce have fallen by four per cent, although on average over the last three years 30,000 days a year are lost as a result.

Council employees now average 9.48 days a year off sick, which is below the national average of 10.6.

Records at the Municipal Buildings show that over the last three years 315 members of staff were on long-term sick leave, with 16 per cent of them returning around the six month mark. 

The sickness record of Inverclyde Council’s workforce provoked criticism three years ago when it was revealed to be amongst the worst in Scotland, but that picture has since improved.

A council spokesman said today: “We have been working hard to reduce sickness absence and to support staff.

“The rates for both teachers and other employees are below the national average and continue to fall.”