MORE than 43,000 working days have been lost to Inverclyde Council through staff absences in 15 months — and bosses haven't a clue how much money it's cost.

The cash-strapped local authority — with services under pressure from budget cuts and redundancies — is seeing rates of mental health sick leave on the increase.

Deputy leader Jim Clocherty pointed towards financial pressures within the organisation as having a continued impact on staff, but insisted this was not the whole picture.

Councillor Clocherty said: "Growing and increasing pressure on council budgets is putting, and will continue to put, pressure on staff.

"Inverclyde is not alone in that, increasingly the expectation is that services will have to do more with less."

But he added: "It wouldn't be right to suggest a direct link from that to sickness absence — 40 per cent of our workforce have full attendance."

Figures obtained by the Telegraph under Freedom of Information legislation reveal that 43,016 working days were lost through staff sickness between April 2017 and June this year.

However Councillor Clocherty said: "A big number needs to be put into context.

"The council has policies and procedures in place to manage its sickness absence and we expect our managers to carry these out.

"The council monitors its sickness absence and has triggers in place to take action to support employees getting back to work. It also has set targets for services and teams to achieve."

That target currently stands at nine sick days per employee per year, however, the financial cost to the council of the 43,000-plus absences that the Telegraph has uncovered is a mystery.

A Municipal Buildings spokesman said: "We don't routinely collate how much absences cost."

Days lost per employee within health and social care, which has had its funding slashed, stood at 14.5 in the last year — around 50 per cent higher than the average for the whole council of 9.22 days.

According to official figures, mental health absences accounted for 26.4 per cent of all absences in 2017/18, up from 25.23 per cent the previous year, and 'virus/short term' sick leave represented 30.3 per cent of the total.

Sixty per cent of the council's total workforce of 4,102 people had time off on sick leave — 1,451 staff for nine days or less and 1,007 for 10 days or more.

The council's budget has been slashed by £53m since 2009 and 611 jobs have disappeared during this time.

SNP opposition leader Chris McEleny chose not to answer a question as to whether Scottish Government fiscal policy, budget cuts and increased staff workloads are contributory factors to the absence rate.

Councillor McEleny said: "I am comfortable with the figures mentioned.

"When you look into them, over 20 per cent were staff recovering from major surgery or medical conditions, 40 per cent of council staff didn't have a single day off and 35 per cent were absent for only a short period of time.

"Absences also cover things like time off related to maternity.

"I would like to think people in Inverclyde are more than happy that their council provides support to members of staff in such conditions."

Mr McEleny added: "Naturally, we always want to make sure that we can be as efficient as possible but I am proud to be a member of a council that supports its staff when that support is required and instead of the age old argument of 'look how good the public sector has it', maybe we should be shining light on organisations that don't provide that level of support to their staff and staff need to choose between going to work unfit or losing pay."