Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many days were lost to sickness in his Department in each of the last 10 years.

We have greatly reduced sickness absence in DWP from an average of 11.1 days per employee eight years ago to just 6.4 days per employee now. This is below the figure for the public sector of 7.9 days on average per employee, which was independently reported by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development in its latest sickness absence report.

The number of working days lost to sickness within the Department for Work and Pensions in each of the last 10 years is recorded in the following table.