Number of sick days taken by Social Security employees 2010 to 2015 (FOI)

​Request

Please can you tell me the total number of sick days taken by Social Security public sector
employees in the last five years?

Can you detail how much this amounts to in wages?

Response

The below table details the amount of days taken sick, and the estimated cost, by year for the Social Security Department:

For 2015, this is only showing sickness days that have been taken between and including 1 January 2015 to 31 October 2015.

We have included an additional column, full time equivalent (FTE) as the sickness days must be matched to this data in order for there to be a relevant comparison.

The sickness cost is an estimated cost, this is based on the basic pay of the employee (excluding Pension, Social Security any other additional payments made to the employee (if applicable).

Sickness cost also excludes any other costs involved in the absence of the employee, for example having to hire additional staff to cover the period of absence.

The cost of absence may also be overestimated, as the current system doesn't provide information as to when a period of absence enters half / nil pay.