§ Mr. ClaphamTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many days of sick leave were taken by(a) primary and secondary school teachers and (b) other staff in those schools in the last year for which records are available; and what the cost was. [56059]
§ Mr. Timms[holding answer 20 May 2002]In the calendar year 2000, full-time teachers in the English maintained schools sector took 2,392,400 days of sick leave', and part-time teachers in the English maintained schools sector took 301,970 days of sick leave. These figures cannot be broken down by phase.
Provisional 2001 data will be published on 30 May 2002.
The estimated cost of this lost teacher time2 is £430 million.
The Department does not collect information on sick leave taken by non-teaching staff in schools.
1 Sickness absence on working days, whether paid absence or not, of teachers with permanent contracts or contracts of over one month, including teachers without QTS. The number of days taken as sick leave includes all periods of sick leave.2 The cost of a teacher's working day is calculated using estimates of teacher salaries and additional teacher costs in 2000.