Ref. 28006-103CIVIC chiefs are unable to tell how many sick days employees are taking at Swindon Council.

The authority, which has a budget of £180 million and employs 8,000 people, does not have the necessary computer software to show how many working days have been lost to sickness.

And the man in charge of turning round the council's fortunes said this was hampering the authority's efforts to be taken seriously by the Government.

Levels of staff sickness are one of the indicators used to rank councils in terms of performance. Swindon is ranked as poor and is one of the 13 worst in England.

At the cabinet meeting Nick Martin (Con, Shaw and Nine Elms), the council's lead member for corporate recovery, described not being able to show the number of working days lost to sickness as a "cock up." He said: "The computer system is not yet in a fashion to enable self-certified sickness days to be reported.

"We need a software system to do it, there is not one at the moment. Any self-respecting company would be able to report on something like this.

"There has not been a performance culture at the council before. We are now trying to hold officers to account to deliver levels of service. Turning round Swindon Council is rather like turning round an oil tanker it's a devil of a job.

The cabinet was this week presented with a summary of the authority's performance target indicators from July to September this year.

Its Social Services department failed all its targets, apart from delayed discharges, the education department met four out of six targets, but targets for processing housing benefit claims and council tax collection were not met.

The council's chief executive, Simon Birch, said: "We have bought in a specialist who has helped in installing software to get a handle on it."

A spokeswoman for Nationwide, which employs 3,892 people in Swindon said: "We have software that monitors absence so managers know how many people are off on any one day."