Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the number of teachers who have been signed off with long-term sick leave in England in the last five years.

The requested data is not held in the format requested. Although the Department holds data on the sickness absence of teachers, no assessment has been made of the trends in long term sickness absence.

Published data on teacher sickness absence is available in table 16 of the School Workforce in England Statistical First Release which is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2016.