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Latest NewsHR practiceSickness absenceWellbeingOccupational Health

Sick leave levels at Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and Driving Standards Agency slammed by MPs

by Nic Paton 4 Jan 2008
by Nic Paton 4 Jan 2008

MPs have criticised the “amazingly high” levels of sick leave among staff at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the Driving Standards Agency (DVLA).


The influential House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said that, on average, employees took 15 days a year off sick.


More than 1,000 employees at the DVLA took more than 21 days’ sick leave a year, with nine absent for the whole year.


Public accounts committee chairman Edward Leigh said sick leave within the two agencies seemed “to be a way of life”.


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He added: “The fact that both agencies seem to function adequately despite this amazingly high rate of absence is matter for surprise, to say the least.”


The report follows a highly critical study, published in June by the government’s spending watchdog the National Audit Office, which calculated that staff sickness absence at the Department for Transport and its agencies averaged 10.4 days in 2005, costing the taxpayer around £24m a year.

Nic Paton

Nic Paton is consultant editor at Personnel Today. One of the country's foremost workplace health journalists, Nic has written for Personnel Today and Occupational Health & Wellbeing since 2001, and edited the magazine from 2018.

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