'Sickies costing UK £1.6bn a year'

Published on Tuesday 13 May 2008 21:24

SICK leave cost UK businesses £13.2 billion last year, with workers taking an average of 6.7 days' absence for illness, a report out today reveals.

About one absence in ten is believed to be a "sickie" – days taken without a legitimate reason – costing the UK economy 1.6bn a year, according to the latest survey from the Confederation of British Industry.

And the CBI said its study of 2007 showed that the gulf between absence rates in the public and private sectors grew to a record level.

Public-sector workers took an average of nine days off sick compared with 5.8 for those in private firms, according to the survey, conducted with the Axa insurance firm.

The report claimed that 1.4bn of taxpayers' money could be saved if public-sector organisations matched the private sector's average absence rate.

Last night the results sparked an angry reaction from unions, which disputed the CBI's interpretation of the different survey findings for the public and private sectors.

The CBI said the figures proved there was a culture of absence in workplaces, coupled with problems such as low morale and poor management, particularly in the public sector.

While the UK figures are slightly lower than last year's average of seven days, absence levels in Scotland rose to 6.8 days in 2007 from six the previous year.

David Lonsdale, assistant director of CBI Scotland, said: "The CBI's absence survey reveals that a third of employers consider special events such as major football games to be a likely cause of unwarranted absence.

"Employers do not want genuinely ill staff dragging themselves into work when they should be recovering.

"However, it is hugely unfair on colleagues when people who are fit enough to work phone in sick and award themselves an extra day's leave."

The report also claimed that organisations that recognised trade unions were hit by three days' more absence than in non-unionised workplaces – 8.1 days against 5.1 days.

Dave Moxon, deputy general secretary of STUC, said: "There is no comparison in the report between sickness absence in the UK and amongst our European competitors. If there had been it would show that the UK's performance, particularly in relation to short-term absence, is strong.

"Time and again the CBI return to the old chestnut of sickness absence being more pronounced in the public sector.

"A more careful look at the figures reveals that the public sector performs well on short-term absences but is less likely to take pre-emptive action to terminate the employment of someone who is longer-term sick."

He added: "Providing the opportunity for the longer-term sick to return to their place of work may appear inefficient in the short term but is a far better route to wider economic success than having them languishing on incapacity benefit, needing expensive government return-to-work programmes to re-enter the jobs market."

In 2007 the average direct cost of absence was 517 per employee, according to the report, counting lost production and the expense of temporary staff or overtime.