Conclusions and recommendations
1. The Prison Service continues to experience
unacceptably high levels of sickness absence of 14.7 days on average
per person in 2002-03 with over 20% of staff taking 11 days or
more per annum. The
Prison Service should set annual sickness absence milestones to
increase momentum towards reducing average sickness absence in
prisons to the target of nine days per person.
2. The Prison Service should consider whether
more rigorous checks could be carried out at the recruitment stage
to identify candidates' potential health and fitness risks.
The stressful and physically challenging nature of the work may
contribute to sickness levels, and the Service needs to be confident
that recruits have the necessary aptitudes.
3. The Prison Service should consider the
costs and benefits of not paying staff for the first three days
of any period of sickness absence in line with the approach used
by private sector prisons to manage sickness absence.
4. Some prisons are difficult to work in and
it is essential to have managers able to motivate and encourage
staff to attend. For example, women's
prisons, and prisons with high turnover rates, can be more stressful
than those with more stable populations or where the environment
is more relaxed and low risk. The Prison Service should set differential
sickness absence targets taking account of the relative difficulties
of each type of prison establishment, which should inform staff
planning so that absence problems are not further compounded by
unrealistic staffing assumptions.
5. All managers in the Prison Service should
be trained in how to manage sickness absence and to encourage
attendance. The Prison Service should
set a target for quick completion of such training, and establish
a rolling programme for new recruits and for refreshing existing
staff knowledge.
6. The Prison Service should identify the
public and private prisons with relatively low sickness absence,
establish the reasons for their success and disseminate the lessons
learned. The Prison Service should monitor
actions taken by other Prison Governors to implement the lessons
learned.
7. The Prison Service has been slow to implement
initiatives recommended by this Committee in 1999 with many not
becoming effective until 2002. With the cost of sickness absence
currently estimated at £80 million, the Service needs to
act urgently to take a tighter grip of the problem.
8. The Prison Service should use sickness
absence data to benchmark performance internally and externally,
and to take clear action where particular prisons under perform.
9. Staff morale in
the Prison Service was adversely affected by problems with the
implementation of the new Home Office payroll software which impacted
on employees' receipt of their correct pay. The Home Office should
review the lessons learned for future projects including the human
impact of IT system weaknesses.
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