Sick leave in the Whitehall blob is surging under Labour, analysis suggests.
Absence rates jumped by up to 26 per cent in major government departments last year.
Civil servants taking prolonged periods off over mental health issues was fuelling the rise, sources claimed, with tens of thousands of working days lost.
And it showed Labour ministers were ‘turning a blind eye’ and had gone soft on trying to boost productivity in the public sector, critics said last night.
The analysis comes amid wider concerns about Britain’s sick-note epidemic, with 11 million ‘fit notes’ – which assess an individual’s ability to work – doled out in England last year.
Public sector workers are 60 per cent more likely to be off due to illness than those in the private sector.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s department saw one of the biggest increases, with 35,452 working days lost last year, the study found. This soared from 28,122 in 2023 and concerned 2,904 staff, up from 2,437.
Alex Burghart, the Tories’ Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: ‘This is shocking analysis. Too many days are lost to sick leave in the Civil Service. It’s unfair on taxpayers and on the staff left to carry the load.
Sick leave in the Whitehall blob is surging under Labour, analysis suggests. Absence rates jumped by up to 26 per cent in major government departments last year
‘Ministers are turning a blind eye and the Government has gone soft on productivity. This is the last thing Britain needs when it is already struggling under Labour.’
Most of the increase was due to ‘long-term’ absences, suggesting civil servants are calling in sick for extensive periods.
Working days lost as a result of these longer periods off surged from 16,165 to 20,770, compared to a jump from 11,957 to 14,682 because of ‘short-term’ sickness. Staff with no such time off stood at 67 per cent, down from 72 per cent.
Mental health issues fuelled a surge in absence rates, the Department for Transport said.
Its annual report and accounts claimed overall ‘Average Working Days Lost’ per staff member last year jumped from 8.6 to 9.2 for officials at the department and linked agencies.
Again, the majority (5.7) were for ‘long-term’ sickness, with ‘mental ill health’ remaining the ‘largest long-term absence type’.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s office recorded a jump of 12 per cent in the sickness leave rate. As of March 31 this year, the average working days lost to sickness per official was 7.4 days, up from 6.6 in 2024.
And the Department for Education’s rate surged from 5.3 to six. Angela Rayner’s housing department also saw a 12 per cent jump in average working days lost due to sickness, from a rate of five in 2023 to 5.6 last year.
Conservative Party Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Northern Ireland Secretary Alex Burghart said: ‘This is shocking analysis. Too many days are lost to sick leave in the Civil Service. It’s unfair on taxpayers and on the staff left to carry the load’
Only 58 per cent registered ‘no sickness absence’, down from 63 per cent the year before.
But rates at agencies linked to the department were much worse, with the days-lost rate at 8.8 – up from 5.9. Just 41 per cent suffered no sickness, down from 56 per cent.
Of eight departments to have published their accounts for 2024/25, just two saw sickness rates fall or stay the same.
These were the Treasury, where the rate dropped from 3.3 to 2.8 days lost on average per worker last year, and the Department for Work and Pensions (6.9 to 6.8).
It comes despite Sir Keir Starmer saying in December that ‘too many’ civil servants ‘are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline’.
A government spokesman said: ‘The civil service provides a range of tools and policies to ensure employees remain in work and are supported to return to work as quickly as possible.’
