Poor sickness record at Department of Work and Pensions
Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) employees took more than 12 days sick leave each last year at a total cost of £100 million.
Absence levels in the DWP were among the highest in the civil service, affecting a number of departments including child support, pensions and jobseeking.
Figures from the National Audit Office (NAO) reveal that, excluding those who took no time off, the average sick leave was 18.6 days, representing 1,72 million lost days in total.
Nearly 110,000 workers had at least one day off sick, while 362 staff were off for the whole financial year to March.
The highest DWP absence rates were in offices in the inner London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Wandsworth, while Rutland and Lincolnshire had the lowest rates, at an average of 8.7 days lost in a year.
Nearly a third of those who took a month or more off work cited stress, anxiety or depression as the reason.
As such the NAO predicts that the department will fail to meet its target of an average of eight sick days taken in 2006.
The DWP is commended for some of its sickness management policies – including compulsory interviews return-to-work interviews for staff claiming sickness – but warns that some basic elements of sickness management such as the issuing of warnings are implemented inconsistently at local level.
NAO head, Sir John Bourn, said: “Achieving better staff attendance at the Department for Work and Pensions, the largest government department, would be an important step towards improving central government efficiency. The department’s absence rate is high and has not yet been reduced by the introduction of a new policy. There are no easy solutions, particularly at a time when the department is undergoing a heavy programme of change, but the department needs to do more to ensure that the good attendance management procedures it has introduced are adopted by all staff and managers across the organisation.”
The sickness levels are particularly worrying as 30,000 jobs are set to go in the department as part of the Government’s efficiency drive.
