House of Commons: Coronavirus

(asked on 18th January 2021) - View Source

Question

To ask the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, representing the House of Commons Commission, what assessment has been made of trends in the level of sickness-related absence of staff working on the Parliamentary estate since March 2020.


Answered by
Pete Wishart Portrait
Pete Wishart
This question was answered on 26th January 2021

Levels of sickness absence are regularly reviewed and discussed weekly in the Covid operations group and in the weekly Trade Union meetings.

Sickness data is recorded for staff where they are unavailable to work due to illness. As the estate has seen different levels of required staff attendance over the last 12 months, comparison between periods is of limited use.

Absence rates have been reviewed against those from other areas of the public sector. Increases in absence can be identified in March 2020, December 2020 and January 2021.

The absence rates in the House have remained at comparable levels to previous years and below the wider public sector.

Description

APR

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

SEPT

OCT

NOV

DEC

Average working days lost per employee

5.09

4.94

4.71

4.66

4.58

4.43

4.33

4.23

5.39

% long term sick

58.55%

59.24%

59.09%

61.33%

62.01%

62.10%

63.68%

66.06%

52.61%

Please note the data is based on a rolling 12-month period, so the data for December 2020 is from 01/01/2020 to 31/12/2020.

The average working days lost per employee is the number of working days lost in the rolling 12-month period divided by the staff headcount.

The % long term sick is the percentage of sickness absences which were part of a period of absence of over 28 calendar days in the rolling 12-month period.

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