To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate he has made of the number of hours of work lost through sickness absence on the part of staff working in his Department in the last 12 months. (245304)

All staff are on secondment from the Scottish Executive or the Ministry of Justice; who as parent Departments have absence management policies that apply to those of their staff working in this office. We do not maintain a separate central record of sick absences. Such records are held by the parent Departments who publish their sick absence statistics.