Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The Sickest Service 13 4%
Absences costing £33.8m Lost days hit 10yr high
SICK absence in the Civil Service cost £33.8million last year as days lost reached a 10-year high.
The average number of days lost per staff year in Northern Ireland increased to 13 for 2017/18.
The peak recorded was 15.5 days in 2003/04.
Anxiety, stress, depression and other psychiatric illnesses were the biggest reason given for staff being off sick in the last financial year.
Within this category, work-related stress accounted for approximately a third of the days lost.
In salary terms, the days lost equate to around 4% of the total Northern Ireland Civil Service pay bill in 2017/2018.
Nipsa general secretary Alison Millar placed full responsibility at the door of management and said more needed to be done to improve the working environment.
She said: “After last year’s report we raised with NICS management the need to do more to address in particular the level of illness due to anxiety/stress/ depression and psychiatric illness.
“We offered to work jointly to see what
could be done, in response we were told all that could be done was being done.
“This is not the case, management continue to make cuts, attack terms and conditions, change how people work and pile on more pressure whilst totally failing to address the root cause of the problem.”
She added: “Each year the NI Statistics Agency is allowed to issue a report that is based on data only and not informed by the true reasons that lie behind the WHEN the Duchess of Sussex went out on her first solo engagement, Prince Harry must have been hoping she would not do anything too wild.
But even he could not have predicted the 37-year-old would be this outrageous – and close her own car door as she arrived at the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition in London.
But the simple gesture as she left the chauffeur-driven motor was enough to send social media into meltdown.
Fans were quick to praise the actress for being “humble”. Others quipped she may be putting someone out of a job. data. NICS management do not comment on the report, as they know only too well that they carry the responsibility for a workplace that fails to properly assess the problems and fails to protect staff from the harm caused by applying continuous additional pressure on staff with less resources.
“It is time for NICS Management to properly engage with Nipsa to improve the working environment.”
The statistics for the past year showed 46.6% of staff had no recorded absence while one in every eight member of staff had at least one spell of long-term absence. These spells lasted around three months on average.
Staff who had been in post for under two years had a much lower level of sickness absence than staff who had been employed for two years or more. A Department of Finance spokesman said the increase was “disappointing” but said 86.5% of days lost were covered by a medical certificate. He added: “Reducing sick absence remains a priority for all departments and it is vital work on this area continues. “The challenge for the NICS is to ensure all staff have the necessary health and wellbeing support at the right time in the right place.
“The NICS places a high priority on the wellbeing of colleagues and offers a range of work-life balance initiatives and healthy lifestyle programmes.”
Average number of days lost per staff year in 2017/18 What the lost days work out to in terms of salaries