Concerns have been raised about sickness absence and vacancy levels in the Northern Ireland Civil Service.
There were 13.8 days on average lost per staff year in the civil service in 2023/2024, an increase from 12.3 days in the previous year, according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.
This represented 6.3% of the available working days in 2023/24, and equated to an estimated £44 million in direct salary cost.
The Stormont Finance Committee on Wednesday also heard about high levels of vacancies across departments for a number of reasons, including budgetary issues.
Catherine Shannon, from the Department of Finance, said anxiety, stress and depression accounted for the greatest proportion of working days lost.
She also told the committee that the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) recently released statistics for the first quarter of this year, in which the majority of departments experienced a decease in absence levels compared to the previous quarter.
“We recognise a need for an understanding and supportive approach in the management of sickness absence as well as the significant impact of ill health on the cost and quality of service delivery,” she told MLAs.
She said they had developed a multi-tier management of sickness absence tool kit for managers to help them appropriately manage staff absences, and developed a mechanism to analyse absences.
“Our focus for the coming year is promoting a preventative approach to occupational health,” she added, outlining services available to staff.
Committee chairman Matthew O’Toole said the Northern Ireland Civil Service was in a “very bad place when it comes to the level of long-term sick leave”.
Ms Shannon said that was why they had put in place a proactive and sustained effort to address the issue.
He pressed Ms Shannon on why the levels were so high.
She responded saying they had been looking for the reasons, including a rise generally across Northern Ireland in terms of mental health illnesses and long health waiting lists.
“It is multifaceted, which is why we have tried to come at it from a number of different angles in terms of working with our colleagues across departments on the initiation of a mental health forum, looking at our broader public sector to see if there are different pieces of work we can do together collectively,” she said.
“We absolutely recognise it is an issue, and we are committed in terms of the initiatives that we have started to take forward this year and plan to take forward to address that and hopefully reduce those numbers.”
UUP MLA Steve Aiken questioned officials in terms of prison officers, saying levels of stress among their ranks was significant, and contended that some had indicated to him that they felt the support they received from the civil service was “suboptimal”.
Ms Shannon said they were continually looking to improve services.
“There is a recognition we will always want to improve, and can we improve, absolutely, and we want to do that and we are committed to doing that,” she said.
In terms of vacancies, Ms Shannon said due to the budgetary position, they had not been in a position to fill vacancies.
“Really, the budget situation has been driving a slowing down of recruitment in some areas and that is exacerbating the situation in terms of levels of temporary promotions and the ability to fill some of those vacancies on a permanent basis,” she said.
Ms Shannon was asked about a case highlighted by the Belfast Telegraph recently of a civil servant who had been on a temporary promotion for 18 years.
She told the committee that “has now been resolved”.
She said in September there were around 2,792 temporary promotions, around 10% of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and of those, 683 had lasted from one to two years, 530 for two to four years and 177 for over four years.
