Medway Council’s annual workforce report showed overall staff turnover fell to 9.7% in 2025/26, but first-year turnover remained high at 27.3%, with the Children and Adults directorate identified as the primary area of concern.

More than one in four new employees at Medway Council left within their first year of joining, according to the council’s annual workforce report for 2025/26, which was presented to the Employment Matters Committee on 17 September 2026.

First-year turnover stood at 27.3%, down from 29.8% the previous year, but officers described the figure as remaining relatively high and noted that workforce movement continued to be concentrated among newer employees rather than the established workforce.

Overall workforce growth

As of 31 March 2026, Medway Council employed 3,330 staff, an increase of 266 employees — 8.7% — compared with March 2025. Full-time equivalent capacity rose by 9.7% over the same period. Growth was concentrated primarily within the Children and Adults directorate, where workforce numbers increased by more than 21% following service investment and workforce expansion activity.

628 employees joined the organisation during 2025/26, with most recruitment growth occurring within Children and Adults. Overall staff turnover fell from 12.7% to 9.7%, which the report said remained below wider local government turnover levels.

Sickness absence

The council’s sickness absence rate fell from 10.46 to 9.97 days per full-time equivalent during 2025/26, with improvements recorded across all directorates. Long-term sickness absence reduced significantly, with over 1,600 fewer days lost compared with 2024/25. Stress and anxiety remained the leading cause of absence across the organisation.

Equality data concerns

The report identified a significant deterioration in equality data quality for new starters, particularly within Children and Adults following substantial recruitment activity. Ethnicity declaration rates fell from 94.9% to 90.4%, disability declaration rates from 59.8% to 54.5%, and sexual orientation declaration rates from 74.5% to 72.8%.

Officers said the decline limited the council’s ability to accurately assess workforce representation and trends.

Ethnic minority employees accounted for 15.8% of the workforce, compared with 15.7% of the Medway population, indicating that the workforce broadly reflected the ethnic diversity of the communities it serves.

Action plan

A Workforce Report Action Plan was presented alongside the report, setting out measures to improve equality declaration rates, strengthen recruitment and onboarding, improve retention and first-year turnover, develop succession planning for critical roles, and enhance workforce intelligence and benchmarking.

Officers noted that the Children and Adults directorate remained the council’s primary workforce planning focus due to the scale of workforce growth and recruitment activity within it.

The council had not published the minutes of the meeting at the time of writing, so the committee’s decision is not yet on the public record.

Sources

Top image: illustrative, computer-generated. Illustrative image generated by AI. This is not a photograph of Medway Council or any real council building.