Prison sick leave costs £80m a year

20 Jan 05
Public sector prisons have failed to get a grip on high rates of sickness absence, costing the taxpayer £80m a year, senior MPs said this week.

21 January 2005

Public sector prisons have failed to get a grip on high rates of sickness absence, costing the taxpayer £80m a year, senior MPs said this week.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee recommended that the Prison Service follow the example of privately managed prisons and not pay staff for the first three days of any sickness absence.

The MPs also called on the service to conduct more rigorous health and fitness checks on recruits to ensure that they are up to the physical demands of the job.

PAC chair Edward Leigh said levels of sickness absence in the Prison Service were higher than in other areas of the public sector.

'At 14.7 days absence per person in 2002/03, sickness levels are still unacceptably high and the service missed by a long chalk its own target of nine days,' he said.

'If the Prison Service were to meet its target, then around 1,000 extra staff would be available for duty, easing the burden on their colleagues and improving support, such as education programmes, for prisoners.'

Other recommendations in the January 18 report included annual sickness absence milestones to increase momentum towards the nine-day target and adjusted targets to take account of the differing levels of pressure in different prisons.

Prisons, both public and private, with low rates of sickness absence should be identified and good practice disseminated, the report said.

A Prison Service spokesman acknowledged that sickness absence rates had been too high but added that they had fallen by 14% in the past two years and were expected to continue falling.

'One-third of prison staff took no sick leave and a further third took less than five days,' he said.

PFjan2005

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