Scottish Government workforce information 2016

3. Sickness absence of directly employed staff

3.1 The average number of working days lost ( AWDL)[5] to sickness per staff year stood at 7.4 at the end of December 2016 ( Table 3, Chart 3) . This is well below the value of 10.9 AWDL reported for those working in UK central government and similar to the 7.5 average for all employees in the UK in 2016 ( Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, CIPD).

3.2 The AWDL for all absences has slowly been rising in recent years. It has risen by 1.1 days, from 6.3 at the end of March 2012 to 7.4 at the end of December 2016 ( Table 3, Chart 3).

3.3 Although the overall number of days lost due to long term illness remains lower than those for short term issues, the gap has been narrowing due to long term increasing by 0.7 days while short term increased by 0.5 days between March 2012 to December 2016 ( Table 3, Chart 3). Some fluctuations are caused by particularly virulent illnesses, such as influenza, which are prevalent on a large scale for a short time and therefore result in brief increases in the short-term AWDL ( Table 3, Chart 3). In addition, absence rates can be partly influenced by changes in attendance management policy or practice.

3.4 The percentage of working days lost is the percentage of the total number of working days lost due to sickness absences out of the total working days available during the year. The percentage working days lost has remained stable for the last 2 years at just over 3 per cent ( Table 3, Chart 3). It has only increased by 0.5 percentage points since the end of March 2012 ( Table 3, Chart 3).

Chart 3. AWDL Sickness absence of directly employed staff