Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what information his Department holds on the amount of sick leave taken by civil servants in 2018.

The Cabinet Office collects sickness absence information from Civil Service departments and agencies on a quarterly basis. The Civil Service sickness absence data is published annually. The latest publication is for Q1 2018, published 30 May 2019 and is available online: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-sickness-absence. This data shows civil servants took an average of 6.9 sick days over the period – significantly lower than the level seen in the wider public sector.