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 for mental health issues in (a) his Department and (b) the civil service, in each of the last two years for which data is available.

The Civil Service recognises that good workforce health and wellbeing is fundamental to delivering effective public services. We support people so that they can remain at work where possible and to return as soon as they are ready following sickness absence.

The Cabinet Office holds information on the amount of sick leave taken and the reasons for sick leave taken for (a) all of the civil servants in the Department who have recorded absence due to sickness. This includes sick leave for mental health issues that in each of the calendar years 2016 and 2017 amounted to less than 1 day of absence per staff year.

Statistics on sick leave taken by staff in the Cabinet Office are published quarterly in arrears at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-absence-data .

The Cabinet Office collates data on sickness absence from (b) civil service departments and agencies on a quarterly basis in order to understand variation across departments and overall civil service trends. The data can be broken down across a range of types of illness including mental ill-health. The latest data held covers the years leading up to and including Q2 2017 (July 2016 - June 2017). In this period there was an average of 1.7 days per staff year of absence due to mental ill health across the civil service. In the previous year (July 2015-June 2016) there was an average of 1.8 days per staff year of absence due to mental ill health across the civil service.

The latest Civil Service sickness absence data for Q1 2017 was published on 14 December 2017 and is available online at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-sickness-absence .

The Civil Service continues to review how it can actively manage all sickness absence and improve health and wellbeing at work even further, ensuring that it consistently delivers the high level of service that the public demand and expect.