HC Deb 24 June 1996 vol 280 cc14-5W
Mr. Ian McCartney

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the cost in each of the past five years of(a) sick pay and (b) compensation paid to employees of his Department or their families, or members of the public, as a result of (i) minor, (ii) major and (iii) fatal injuries related to the work of his Department, detailing incidents involving information technology and those involving expenditure of more than £5,000. [33478]

Sir Paul Beresford

The total cost of compensation paid by the Department of Environment, excluding its agencies, to employees, their families, or members of the public, as a result of injury was:

£
1991–92 19,800
1992–93 11,412
1993–94 5,342
1994–95 21,940
1995–96 8,695
Total 67,189

The average annual cost was less than £13,500.

During this period there were no fatal injuries and none of the compensation payments related to incidents involving information technology. Two individual claims were settled at over £5,000: one in 1992, for £8,400, involving someone who had tripped over a loose piece of paving outside a Government building; the other, in 1993, for £5,360, to someone who had sustained injuries in an accident involving a lift in a Government building.

The amount of sick pay for injuries in the same period is not available.