§ Mr. DrewTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent discussions he has had with other departments on reducing(a) its level of early retirements and (b) the number of people leaving early on sickness or ill health grounds. [73713]
§ Mr. Boateng(a) There has been no discussion with departments about reducing early retirements or ill-health retirement for the various public service groups. However, a recommendation in the report of the Treasury led review of ill-health retirement in the Public Sector (published in July 2000) was that high level targets should be set challenging employers to reduce ill health retirement by 2005 to a level consistent with or better than those at present achieved by the best quartile of employers.
(b) There is no centrally held data about people leaving early on sickness or ill health grounds. The monitoring of people leaving early on sickness or ill health grounds is a matter for the sponsor departments of the various public service groups.