Staff absence beyond one month: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/02424
Date received: 18 October 2017
Date responded: 15 November 2017

Information requested

You made the following request for information:

How many Scottish Government workers were off work for longer than a month but less than six months in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Also, how many Scottish Government workers who were off work for longer than a month returned to work in either month six or month seven in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Response

You have requested information for Scottish Government staff. Our response therefore covers staff who are employed in the Core Directorates and who are subject to Scottish Government Main and Scottish Government Marine terms and conditions of employment. It also covers Senior Civil Servants working in those areas.

The Scottish Government has arrangements in place to closely monitor sickness absence levels to ensure that appropriate action is taken both to help reduce overall absence rates among employees and to support individual members of staff during periods of ill-health.

For Scottish Government's Core Directorates, the number of staff who have been absent for between 1 and 6 months calendar duration is as follows:

Year absence started	Number of workers
2014	199
2015	189
2016	205
2017 (to end Sep)	138

For Scottish Government's Core Directorates, the number of staff who have been absent for over 1 month calendar duration with absence ending in June or July is as follows:

Year absence ended	Month absence ended	Number of workers
2014	6	22
	7	13
2015	6	9
	7	17
2016	6	13
	7	21
2017	6	11
	7	17

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses