Managing Sickness Absence in the Northern Ireland Civil Service

The Civil Service is one of the largest employers in Northern Ireland with around 28,000 non-industrial staff.

Sickness absence levels are considerably higher in the Northern Ireland Civil Service than in Great Britain and in 2006-07, some 323,000 days were lost. This is an average of 13.7 days for every full-time equivalent member of staff. Sickness absence considerably reduces the productivity of Government departments; it affects service delivery and costs more than £25 million a year. It is very important, therefore, that Civil Service departments manage sickness absence effectively.

A report published by the Comptroller and Auditor General, examines the management of sickness absence in the Northern Ireland Civil Service.

Main Findings

• While some sickness absence is inevitable, good management can help to minimise it by ensuring that the causes of work-related ill-health are addressed and staff are helped back to work as soon as possible.
• Absence levels in the Northern Ireland Civil Service are around 36 per cent higher than in GB departments.
• The Civil Service has set a target to reduce absence to 9.5 days per employee by 2010. However action taken to date has not delivered reductions of the order necessary to meet this target.
• Long-term absence lasting more than 20 working days, accounts for nearly 70 per cent of all days lost.
• The main cause of absence is classified as “psychiatric/psychological” illness. This accounts for nearly a third working days lost and stress-related illness is a major element in this classification.
• Female sickness absence in NI is almost double that in Great Britain. If reduced to GB levels, this alone would achieve most of the 9.5 days target.
• Higher levels of absence are associated with factors in the workplace such as organisational change, role uncertainty and high work demands. There are indications that many of these factors are present in the Civil Service and that they are not being adequately addressed.
• Early intervention by occupational health professionals tends to limit the duration of absence. However, it takes 53 days on average for Civil Service staff to be seen by its Occupational Health Service. The average long term absence therefore, would last for over two months before any definitive action was taken.
• There have been some initiatives to address long term absence. A Taskforce was set up in November 2006 to research the causes of long term absence including work-related stress and to make recommendations to address them. A draft report is currently subject to consultation.