Government of Jersey employees sick leave 2018 to 2022 (FOI)

Request

Further to the 2016 Freedom of Information request and response linked below, please provide updated statistics for the following:

A

How many sick days have been taken by Government of Jersey employees per year for the years from 2018 to 2022?  Please break the results down by department.

B

To date this year, how many sick days have been taken?  Please break the results down by department.

C

How many man hours have been lost due to sickness per year, and what is the financial cost to the Government of Jersey?

D

Please provide a summary of the reasons people have taken a leave of absence.

Sick Leave (FOI) 

Response

A

Please see Table 1 attached.

Table 1.pdf

Note: 

Before reviewing the data in the reply, please read the applicable notes against each question relating to the data quality and accuracy. 

• The Government of Jersey has historically been under-reporting on sickness centrally, with several areas managing their own spreadsheets. Hence figures appear greater for 2022 and 2023 compared to previous years, which may not be the case however only the data held in the system can be reported. 
• In 2018, two departments show as having zero days - the data in the table is the only data held in the system. 
• Some departments have had a few employees on long-term sick leave. Just a handful of employees on long-term sick leave can add an additional 1300 days for the year.
• To get a better understanding of the sickness days and the impact to the business, please refer to the headcount and FTE figures published in the annual report and accounts, the links for which are provided below. Please note that for 2018 and 2019 the report and accounts only provide total number of employees, department data is not held for these years:

2022 Annual Report and Accounts.pdf. (gov.je) Page 184

2021 Annual Report and Accounts.pdf. (gov.je) Page 273

2020 Annual Report and Accounts.pdf. (gov.je) Page 206

2019 Annual Report and Accounts.pdf. (gov.je) Page 147

2018 Annual Report and Accounts.pdf. (gov.je) Page 158

• In the annual report and accounts for the last couple of years, average sickness days lost have been disclosed per employee at Government of Jersey level. 
• In areas, where there are front-line staff, sickness will always be higher, as common viruses (colds, covid, stomach bugs) are more prevalent. The figures do not indicate a larger problem. In fact, the data is on par with both the NHS and the UK Government (for civil servants). 

Please note that previously published figures for the Government of Jersey total in the Annual Reports and Accounts vary slightly due to significant efforts in collating previously unrecorded data from Departments and updating discrepancies of dates in the system.

Please note that the Covid figures published for sickness in the Annual Report and Accounts included the full range such as 'isolating due to potential exposure'. For this response only data for confirmed cases of Covid has been included.

B

Please see the table below: 

Where numbers are fewer than ten, disclosure control is applied to avoid identification of individuals.  Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

C

Table 2 attached shows the total number of man hours lost due to sickness per year across the Government of Jersey.

Table 2.pdf

With regards to ‘financial cost to the Government’, it has been concluded that this information is not held in recorded form. The Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 does not require a Scheduled Public Authority to manipulate data in order to provide a response. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 therefore applies. 

Please note that previously published figures for the Government of Jersey total in the Annual Reports and Accounts vary slightly due to significant efforts in collating previously unrecorded data from Departments and updating discrepancies of dates in the system.

Please note that the Covid figures published for sickness in the Annual Report and Accounts included the full range such as 'isolating due to potential exposure'. For this response only data for confirmed cases of Covid has been included.

D

Please see below summary of the reasons provided for sickness absence in alphabetical order: 

• Blood disorders for example, anaemia
  
• Burns, scalds, hypothermia
• Chest and respiratory problems
  
• Cold, Cough, Influenza 
• Confirmed Covid with a positive test 
  
• Dental and oral problems
  
• Dermatological
• Ear, nose, throat (ENT)
• Endocrine and glandular problems
• Eye problems
• Gastrointestinal problems including diarrhoea and vomiting
• Genitourinary and gynaecological disorders
• Headache and migraine
• Heart, cardiac and circulatory problems
• Infectious diseases
• Injury, fracture including bruising and cuts
• Long Covid
• Menopause related 
• Mental Health related
• Musculoskeletal
• Nervous system disorders - excluding headache
• Pregnancy related 
• Substance misuse including alcoholism and drugs

Articles applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.