Staff/Officer Sickness - 598/20

Date Responded 11 May 2020

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

Please can you provide the total amount of staff hours lost to absence for staff illness (both police officers and civilian staff) in each of the last three calendar years (2017, 2018, 2019)
Please can you also detail the three main reasons detailed for staff absence.

You then clarified point 2 as by days lost.

In Response:

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the People Services Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.

I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

Total Hours lost to sickness absence:

Year	Officers	Staff	Total
2017	221,231	117,609	338,840
2018	225,970	129,029	354,999
2019	225,185	120,909	346,094
Total	672,386	367,547	1,039,933

2. The 3 main reasons for absence are:

Police Officers

Stress
Back Condition
Depression

Police Staff

Stress
Back Condition
Anxiety

Disclaimer

Due to the different methods of recording information across 43 forces, a specific response from one constabulary should not be seen as an indication of what information could be supplied (within cost) by another. Systems used for recording these figures are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. For this reason responses between forces may differ, and should not be used for comparative purposes.

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.