NUMBERS of county staff being sacked for misconduct are on the rise, new figures have shown today.

NUMBERS of county staff being sacked for misconduct are on the rise, new figures have shown today.

Latest statistics show that 15 employees at Suffolk County Council were axed in the last 16 months, an average of one every four weeks.

The figure represents a huge increase on the period between September 2005 and September 2007 when nine staff were sacked over the 24 month period - one every 11 weeks.

Suffolk County Council revealed that since September 2007 a total of 12 members of staff have been dismissed for professional misconduct and three for fraud.

Professional misconduct can include the “inappropriate use of databases”, being drunk at work, poor treatment of residents or bringing the council into disrepute.

Fraud can include falsifying timesheets or failing to reveal criminal convictions.

A spokesman for Suffolk County Council said: “We have a detailed formal procedure to deal with all conduct and capability issues.

“This means we carry out a full investigation when we have concerns so that these can be robustly dealt with and so that all sides have the opportunity to put their case.

“We take all allegations of gross misconduct very seriously, so that we protect the county council, our customers and our staff.

“Thankfully these most serious cases are rare, as these figures show.

“We have around 10,000 staff (excluding staff in schools, where different procedures apply), and so this represents just 0.1 per cent of our staff employed.”