Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of her Department's staff have had days off sick because of mental illness or stress in each of the last three years; and how many days off that amounted to in each of those years.

In November 2016 DWP launched its health and wellbeing strategy covering mental wellbeing. DWP supports mental wellbeing through a number of initiatives including: 24/7 sign-posting to mental health support in DWP; an Employee Assistance Programme available 24/7 offering confidential counselling (face to face, telephone and live chat), advice and information services for all colleagues and managers, including critical incident debriefing services; an immediate or early referral to Occupational Health for expert advice on how to handle mental health conditions at work; and a range of wellbeing programmes and a series of campaigns to raise awareness of mental health/wellbeing and help reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with mental ill-health.

The Department has also established a network of Mental Health First Aiders (MHFA) who provide acute, short-term and structured support to individuals, provide reassurance, and signpost colleagues to DWP and external sources of support as appropriate. They also actively promote and raise awareness of mental health agenda within their local area. 200 colleagues are currently trained to fulfil this role with a further 300 to be trained by 2019.

The percentage of staff absence and the Working Days lost for reasons related to stress or mental health is as follows:

*The figures include those absences recorded under the following categories: Anxiety and Depression, Mental Health Issues or Stress until March 2017 and Anxiety and Depression, Mental Health Other, Stress, Mental Health Anxiety and Depression or Mental Health Issues for 2017-18. Working days lost excludes weekends but does include public holidays. Numbers of staff includes those currently on nil pay.