Poor response to Moray Council mental health survey causes concern
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Concerns have been raised that manual workers in Moray are not taking part in a survey to assess their health and wellbeing.
With the aim of potentially helping its employees, the council asked staff to complete a questionnaire in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
A total of 5043 surveys were sent out in June.
Of the 4543 electronic copies a total of 1193 people responded – a drop of 456 from the previous year.
Of the 900 paper copies distributed, only 58 people replied.
The issue was discussed at yesterday's corporate committee meeting.
Councillor Graham Leadbitter (Elgin South, SNP) asked what could be done to get more replies from staff who work in departments unable to respond electronically.
He said: "I’m very conscious we have a low response in terms of paper copies, and many of our manual workforce do not access computers on a regular basis.
"There is low return from particular but significant sections of the workforce."
Frances Garrow, the council's head of IT, told him that officers were aware of the issue and were working with trade unions to encourage take-up.
She said: "This is always a challenge. We had officers go down to depots handing surveys out and encouraging completion of paper surveys.
"We created a QR code so people could zap that with their mobile phone and fill the survey in."
Cllr Jérémie Fernandes (Elgin North, SNP) told the meeting that, when he visited to the council's Ashgrove Road depot, almost all the staff mentioned the impact of negative online posts.
He said: "They read on social media that a pothole is not repaired or bins have not been picked up on the day they said they would be.
"Those people work incredibly hard in really hard conditions.
"The employees all said that comments on social media affect their mental health."
The findings from the survey will go towards trying to improve staff training.
