Staff sickness at Oxford City Council is so bad the authority's human resources manager has admitted targets for this year will not be met.

Because the situation is not improving, the authority is searching for an occupational health provider that can improve attendance levels.

Managers are now being sent on absence management refresher courses and departments that require staff to undertake manual work are thinking of changing work patterns to avoid the possibility of personal injury and long-term sickness.

In the first three months of this financial year, 21 employees across 12 different departments were signed off work by their doctor for stress, something the council's human resources manager Anne-Marie Scott said was "easy to do."

Earlier this year Ms Scott said a target of 8.98 days off sick per member of staff was achievable, but yesterday the city council's high-level finance scrutiny committee heard the year-end figure is more likely to be 11, making it one of the worst performing district councils in the country.

The city council mainly blames the situation on long-term sickness and has now revised its year-end target to 10.5 days off per member of staff.

Ms Scott said: "I would be surprised if action results in us getting the target this year.

"This year we are still off course and I would be surprised if we can correct it at this point."

About half the council's 1,400 staff do not take a single day off, but concerns remain about unauthorised 'sickies' and the number of stress-related absences.

Mangers had been noting that their staff were avoiding disciplinary proceedings -- by taking time off with stress.

Between April and June this year staff took 3,646 days off -- the worst first quarter performance for three years.

And in 2004 the Town Hall had the worst sickness record of all five district councils in Oxfordshire with staff taking an average of 12 days off a year, a total of 15,000 days, estimated to cost the taxpayer £1.05m a year.

City councillor John Goddard, a member of the finance scrutiny committee, said: "This is still not a good enough result. It's a weak result and frankly, overall, it's not an improving result.

"We are heading for a worse result than last year and the major influence on sick absence is good pro-active management and that is clearly not in place.

"Anne-Marie's target is unrealistically optimistic and she is setting herself and the managers a high target and setting themselves up to fail."