To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the rate of (a) absence and (b) absence resulting from injury at work was amongst those social service employees for which his Department is responsible in (i) Hemel Hempstead and (ii) Hertfordshire in each of the last five years; what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of such absences; and if he will make a statement. (284560)

Information on absence rates among social service staff is not held centrally by the Department.

It is the responsibility of local employers to collect information on absence rates among their employees.