§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many staff in his Department were on long-term sick leave in each of the last five years; [109244]
(2) how many staff in the Department have been on long-term sick leave in each of the last two years. [115866]
§ Maria EagleThe information is not available in the format requested.
The Department for Work and Pensions was created in June 2001 but statistics for the new Department as a whole have only been available since April 2002. Statistics for the former Department of Social Security are also not available.
562WSuch information is available as follows:
Long-term sick leave is defined as absences lasting 28 working days and over.13,853 people out of 166,286 (8.3 per cent.) in the Department have taken one spell of long-term sickness absence between 1 April 2002 and 31 March 2003.A further 2,504 people in the Department have taken at least two spells of long-term sickness absence between 1 April 2002 and 31 March 2003.This is summarised below:
Number of spells Number of people 1 13,853 2 2,154 3 303 4 35 5 9 6 3