To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what the cost of sickness pay to staff in his Department was in the most recent year for which figures are available. (187514)

The Department does not routinely calculate the average annual cost of stress. As this would involve manually investigating employee sickness records and pay details on an individual basis, the cost of doing this would be disproportionate to the benefit to be derived.

The Department’s sickness, and long term sickness absence rates have consistently been lower than the Whitehall average over the past three years. The average number of working days lost due to sick leave for the period January 2007 to December 2007 is 4.9.