A businessman today branded a Bradford Council stress-busting scheme a crazy waste of money.

Michael Shepherd is raising the issue at tonight's meeting of the Bradford Federation of Small Businesses and he is calling for it to write to the authority about the scheme. He said he expected strong support from his colleagues.

But in defence of the £85,000 plan, Councillor Gill Whitfield, chairman of the personnel and development sub-committee, said stress was costing the Council money when people went off sick and it affected the performance of staff.

Mr Shepherd, 64, joint owner of Tudor Plastics & Leather of Paternoster Lane, Bradford, who says he has three hard-working staff, has called on the Council workers to get on with the job.

He said: "I have operated a small business for 30 years and the City Hall staff do not know what stress is.

"Some weeks I leave home at 5am on Monday and return at 10pm on Thursday. This is not done for fun, it is done to survive, and I do not have a day off with headaches and colds.

"I go to work to earn money to buy bread and the headache goes away.

"It is a total waste of £85,000 of Council money - there must be many other things this money can buy."

The scheme has already received criticism from the Council Tory group and been described as "an exclusive health club".

It follows a stress audit of City Hall staff by a Sheffield University team which showed more than 40 per cent of the 23,000-strong work-force were suffering from the condition.

The main reasons were said to be associated with high work demands, coupled with decreased resources.

The survey showed that workers were more likely to be stressed when they felt they could not choose how to carry out their work and were not recognised for their contribution.

The survey said staff who did not feel valued were also likely to be stressed.

A stress action plan is expected to get the go-ahead from the sub-committee tonight, proposing the appointment of an experienced occupational health practitioner, counselling and physiotherapy in some cases.

It says front-line staff should have influence over decision-making and their workloads. They would identify people who were creating stress and the authority would take action to rectify the situation.

"We take it seriously and we certainly aren't running a private health club," said Coun Whitfield.

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