Prison service sickness rate ‘unacceptable’
Sickness absence rates in the prison services are still “unacceptably” high, according to a new report from the Public Accounts Committee.
It found that in 2002-03 workers took an average of 14.7 days sick a year, costing the tax payer £80 million.
Twenty per cent of staff took over 11 days or more a year
If the Prison Service’s target of an average of nine days sickness absence per person had been met, there would have been around 1,000 extra staff on duty each day.
The MPs suggest that the service should consider not paying staff for the first three days of any period of absence – an approach currently taken in the private prison sector.
They also float the prospect, bearing in mind the stressful nature of the job, of “more rigorous checks” at the recruitment stage to identify candidates’ potential health and fitness risks.
The committee does accept that some prisons are more difficult and stressful than others and suggests that the service should set differing sickness absence targets across the sectors.
Commenting on the report, chairman of the PAC, Conservative MP Edward Leigh, said: “The Prison Service has had a higher sickness absence rate than other parts of Government for a number of years and has been slow to implement initiatives recommended by this Committee in 1999.
He added that: “The Prison Service has improved its procedures for recording and managing sickness absence and has started to bring down sickness rates, but needs to make much further improvement much more quickly.”
But, the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) responded angrily to the report, saying that the committee had failed to take into account the highly stressful environment staff operate in.
General secretary Brian Caton, said the report was “damaging and misleading” and called on the PAC to look at the reasons for the levels of sick absences.
And he said that the POA would continue to call for a high level inquiry into the health and wellbeing of prison staff.
Mr Caton said: “Prison Officers are top of the league of workers throughout the United Kingdom in levels of stress and stress related illness. The Prison Service, Civil Service Management and the Government stand indicted for failing to provide safe and clean environments in which Prison Officers can effectively carry out their duties.
“The POA has demanded from the Prison Service and Government that they provide good occupational health programmes for all prison staff. This has been, in the main, ignored.”
