NI civil servants take an average of 12.9 sick days a year - leads to £36.6m in lost production

A new report published today by the Northern Ireland Statistics Research Agency (Nisra) and the Department of Finance revealed that civil servants here took an average of 12.9 days of sickness in the 2019/2020 financial year.

The total has risen from 12.6 days in the previous year’s report and is the second highest sickness level recorded in five years.

The report says the 12.9 days lost per staff year represented 5.9% of the available working days in 2019/2020, a slight increase on the 5.8% days lost in

2018/2019.

In salary terms, this equated to an estimated £36.6m of lost production - equivalent to 3.9% of the total NICS pay bill in 2019/2020.

Just over half of staff (50.7%) had no recorded sick absence at all.

The level of absence within Departments varied from 9.3 days for the Executive Office (TEO) to 15.5 days for the Department of Justice (DoJ), with most of the Departments recording higher absence levels compared to 2018/2019.

The absence level for females (15.1 days) remained higher than that for males (11.0 days).

Staff who had been in post for under two years had a much lower level of sickness absence (6.1 days) than staff who had been employed for two years or more (13.3 days).

Over one in eight staff (13.3%) had at least one spell of long-term absence - these spells lasted around three months on average. This accounted for over three quarters (77%) of all working days lost.

Anxiety/Stress/Depression/Other Psychiatric Illnesses was the absence reason that accounted for the greatest proportion of working days lost

(37.4%) during 2019/2020.

Within this category, work-related stress accounted for approximately a third of the days lost.

Covid-19 accounted for 0.12 working days lost per staff year in 2019/2020, which was the equivalent of 0.9% of all sickness absence days in the NICS for the period.

A Department of Finance spokesperson said: “Reducing sick absence remains a priority for departments.

“While the level of sickness absence across the civil service is disappointing, the vast majority (nearly 88%) of working days lost were covered by a medical certificate.

“The sick absence reasons highlighted by the report, particularly in relation to absence due to anxiety, stress, depression and psychiatric illness reflect the prevalence of mental health issues across society.

“The NICS remains committed to working jointly with trade union colleagues and other partners such as our Employee Counselling, Welfare and Occupational Health teams to support colleagues stay in work and return to work as soon as they are able.”