18 November 2005
The former Inland Revenue replaced the Department for Work and Pensions as Whitehall's most sickly organisation last year – with staff taking an average of 12 days off ill.
The civil service sickness absence figures for 2004, published by the Cabinet Office on November 15, also show that the cost to taxpayers reached £400m. However, progress has been made in reducing 'sickie' levels that have traditionally been far higher than those in the private sector.
In particular, the DWP, which had long suffered from what the Commons Public Accounts Committee has described as 'stifling' levels of sickness absence, managed to reduce the number of working days lost from 11.6 per staff member in 2003 to 9.6 in 2004.
The DWP's Child Support Agency managed to reduce its absence rate from 13.8 days – one of the highest in the public sector in 2003 – to 11.6 days last year.
Jobcentre Plus managers also managed to reduce absence rates substantially – partially through new ways of tackling staff stress before it leads to absences.
'Mental disorders', which include stress, remain among one of the biggest long-term causes of public sector sickness, according to the Cabinet Office study.
Lord Hunt, minister for health and safety, who has chaired the ministerial task force charged with tackling sickness absence, said: 'Across the public sector, we have started to show that action to… get people back to work sooner is having an impact.
'Our One year on report [published this year] shows what can be done with high-level commitment, management action and return to work interviews.'
Overall, Whitehall's sickness absence rate fell from ten days per employee in 2003, to 9.1 last year, while 40% of government staff took no time off sick at all.
Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell said he was encouraged by the new figures, but warned: 'There is more work to do.'
He said Warner's task force still had an 'essential role in getting sickness absence and the associated cost to the civil service down even further'.
The Prison Service followed the Inland Revenue – which was merged into the Revenue & Customs department this year – as the worst offender in 2004, with an average absence rate of 10.8 days.
Cabinet Office personnel had the most impressive attendance record – averaging just 3.6 days off sick last year.
However, the public sector continues to lag behind the private sector, where staff took an average of just 7.5 days off sick last year.
DWP fraud hotline costs soar but fewer calls are answered
The cost of running the Department for Work and Pensions' benefit fraud hotline has risen by 25% over the past year, yet staff answered fewer calls and prosecuted only a handful of criminals following tip-offs.
'The new secretary of state [John Hutton] must explain why performance is plummeting when costs are soaring,' Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman David Laws said.
Operating costs for the hotline, which was set up in 1996 so that members of the public could help to catch benefit fraudsters, increased from £957,977 in 2003/04 to £1,192,843 in 2004/05, according to benefits minister James Plaskitt.
A spokeswoman for the DWP told Public Finance that cost increases could be attributed to the employment of more staff and the fact that the department was now helping to fund local, as well as national, anti-fraud hotlines.
Yet despite the new staff, almost a third of all calls to the national service were not answered last year according to departmental responses obtained by Laws. Of the 278,000 calls made to the line, 199,000 were answered — a total of 79,000 missed inquiries.
The spokeswoman said many unanswered calls 'came at peak times — such as the immediate aftermath of TV adverts encouraging the public to use the line'.
The DWP also revealed it secured convictions from 0.23% of public tip-offs about potential fraudsters.
'We are still convinced that the hotline represents value for money for taxpayers — for every £1 spent on the line, we claw back £9 in fraudulent claims,' the spokeswoman said.
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