Prince Harry has talked about his grief and MPs have spoken about their own challenges. Will this help all public servants get the support they need?

“For me, it has never been more important to focus on personal wellbeing and resilience,” says Carolyn Wilkins, chief executive of Oldham council. She adds that while working in local government at a time of significant change is challenging and complex, it also brings opportunities for staff and communities to do things differently.

Budget cuts have seen the number of staff employed by the UK public sector levels fall from 6.3 million in December 2010 to 5.4 million in December 2016. But it’s not just about losing jobs: changes to terms and conditions have substantially worsened pay and pensions. A recent report from the Resolution Foundation pointed out that as pay restraint and inflation eat into take-home pay and living standards, wages for public sector staff will, by 2020, be as low as they were in 2005.

Many of the public sector workers who have contributed to the Guardian’s Letter to the Public series have highlighted the stress they are feeling. One local government PR officer said that her job – to put a positive spin on council cuts – felt “soul destroying”.

But it is not all gloom. Wilkins says a sense of belonging to a strong team is crucial to being resilient. She’s put in place a number of programmes for her staff – including the Fit for Oldham initiative that launched in 2016 – which support physical and mental wellbeing, using the council’s own resources such as parks, libraries and public health and music services.

“We also need to make sure we invest time in things that energise us,” says Wilkins. “For me, this can be time with different people, but spending time outdoors is also important.” She runs three or four times a week – “mainly in the dark and rain at the moment”.

Many employers in the public and private sectors are keen to improve employee engagement and productivity, and reduce sickness absence. On that, at least, they are winning: data from the Office for National Statistics shows British workers now take less time off sick than at any time over the past 25 years.

Local government officer Joanne Fry agrees with Wilkins about the need to focus on resilience. She says it can be demoralising for people who joined the sector to use their skills and expertise to help people to have to face the harsh realities of cuts to services. For Fry, writing a blog about the professional and personal challenges helps get some perspective, while “reaching out to colleagues and other professionals on social media is a good way to feel supported”.

Even the civil service, which has traditionally focused on dry achievement targets rather than how its staff feel, now uses its annual civil service survey to measure employee engagement and how staff feel about their managers.

And there are signs that wellbeing and resilience are being taken seriously now. Prince Harry’s recent revelation of the anguish caused by his mother’s death has been welcomed by mental health experts and is part of a more open society that is good for employees and bosses. Once, it would have been unthinkable for MPs, as public servants, to admit to mental health issues, as four Conservative MPs did in parliament in 2012.

Similar, it was groundbreaking only three years ago for then civil servant Louise Kidney to write openly about her experience of autism. But being open about mental health at work has, thankfully, become more acceptable for public staff and there are several initiatives to support those facing stress as a result of their public service, such as Mind’s Blue Light support line for emergency service workers.

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