My Department monitors sickness absence in order to ensure the proper application of the sick leave regulations. Sickness absence for this purpose is measured in "duration days" (span of sickness absence from date of first absence to date of return to work) rather than actual working days lost.
Separately, my Department has begun detailed examination of sickness absence, applying international best practice principles. Our first such examination was done in respect of the calendar year 2007. According to this analysis, the percentage of working days lost in 2007 was 3.90%.
In response to the Deputy's question, we have reviewed the data for the years 2003 — 2006 inclusive. My Department has been able to ascertain that the equivalent figure for 2006 was 4.02%. Extracting similar information for the years 2003 to 2005 inclusive would be an extremely complex and time consuming process and would have to be done manually.