Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much staff time, in hours, was lost to sick leave in (a) the open estate, (b) the secure estate and (c) Young Offenders Institutions in each of the last 10 years.

Sickness is measured across the Civil Service in working days lost rather than the number of hours lost.

The number of working days lost to sickness is published in the HM Prison and Probation Service workforce quarterly publication which is available here: www.gov.uk/government/collections/hm-prison-probation-service-workforce-statistics.

The number of days lost in each prison annually from 1 April 2019 to 30 June 2025 is available in Table 21 of this spreadsheet: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/689f34791fedc616bb133a86/hmpps-workforce-statistics-tables-jun-2025_final.ods.

Data from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2019 is available in Table 21 of this spreadsheet: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64dcd3e0c8dee4000d7f1db2/hmpps-workforce-statistics-tables-jun-2023_final.ods.

The prison categories are available in this spreadsheet: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6889f68876f68cc8414d5b6a/Chapter_10_Tables___Staff_in_post.ods.

Data for 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2017 is included in the attached spreadsheet. This also includes the average staff in post and average working days lost for context to enable comparisons over time.