SICKNESS absence at councils across Oxfordshire in 2005/06 cost taxpayers more than £6m.

Last year, public sector workers at Oxfordshire County Council and the five district councils took a combined 119,762 days off ill an average of more than seven days per employee.

The situation is so bad at Oxford City Council that some employees will have to phone nurses at a call centre if they are calling in sick.

Staff at the authority average 12.44 days off each, the worst performance in three years and by far the worst record of Oxfordshire councils.

Now the Town Hall has agreed a six-month pilot project with a private health company, which has guaranteed a reduction in sickness absence levels.

None of the councils was able to say how much sickness absence was estimated to have cost them, so The Oxford Times asked the Confederation of British Industry, which said the total figure was £6.17m.

City council leader John Goddard said: "It's too high and it needs to get better but absence management is about good, pro-active management and until that is in place things are not going to get better."

Oxford City Council has battled sickness absence among its staff for some time and has been at a loss at what to do.

Last year, human resources manager Anne-Marie Scott said it was easy for staff to get signed off with stress because GPs issued sick notes "at the drop of a hat".

Employees already had to conduct back-to-work interviews with their line managers after a sickness absence, but that was not working.

Now three council departments revenues and benefits, city works and Oxford Building Solutions will participate in the call centre pilot.

A spokesman for Oxford City Council, said: "Employees will ring the call centre and be given advice by the nurses.

"They guarantee a reduction in absence levels during the pilot period with financial penalty if they don't achieve it. They have been extremely successful in other local authorities."

If the city council's partnership with Diagnostic Health Solutions proves successful it could be rolled out across the authority in a bid to drive down the number of days lost to illness.

Barry Norton, the leader of West Oxfordshire District Council, said: "We have worked very hard with staff to get sickness days down.

"If someone is off sick the work is picked up on their return, or by another member of staff, so in real terms it doesn't cost the taxpayer."

A CBI spokesman added: "Absence levels are 30 per cent higher across public sector organisations than in the private sector and if this could be improved to average private sector levels £1.1bn of taxpayers' money would be saved enough to pay for nearly 60,000 extra nurses a year.

"However, based on the current rate of change in the public sector from 8.9 days in 2002 to 8.5 days this year it would take 30 years for it to reduce its absence rates to the average six days lost per employee in the private sector."