Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion of officials in his Department took sick leave for reasons relating to stress in the last 12 months; what proportion that leave was of total sick leave taken in his Department; and what the cost was to his Department of officials taking sick leave over that period.

The number of employees in Cabinet Office from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019 who were
absent for stress related reasons was 48. This represented 0.64% of the total workforce

The proportion of sickness absence related to stress related reasons was 11.35% of the
overall sickness absence for the department for the same time period

The estimated cost to the department from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019 for employees
taking stress related reasons, is estimated at £199,634

Cabinet Office sickness absence data is published regularly, and is available up to
December 2018 here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-absence-
data

The Cabinet Office wellbeing action plan enables support for all staff’s health and
wellbeing. Key initiatives include: running leadership wellbeing training for all Senior Civil
Servants, updating line manager training to ensure wellbeing is included in all
conversations, embedding wellbeing into the Senior Civil Service leadership objective and
including wellbeing in performance management monthly conversation tools

There are a number of support services available in Cabinet Office that provide support or
advice to all employees. These include the Cabinet Office alumni network, the Cabinet
Office listening service and the employee assistance programme.