Conclusions and recommendations
1. The Driving Standards Agency and the Driver
and Vehicle Licensing Authority do not have a good understanding
of the reasons for higher rates of sickness absence in some parts
of their businesses and have only recently undertaken research
to address this weakness.
a. The Driving Standards Agency needs to explore
regional variations in sickness absence and whether, for example,
demographic factors influence levels of sickness absence in test
centres; and
b. the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority
should benchmark its levels of sickness absence against local
authorities and other local employers of a comparative size, to
test if there is a specific problem in Swansea and whether there
is any local best practice that the agency can draw on to improve
its performance.
2. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
has succeeded in reducing short term sickness, but long term absence
has increased and now accounts for 62% of total absence. So
there is no overall improvement in the Agency's sickness absence
rates. The Department and its agencies need to have strategies
for managing both short and long term sickness absence and to
tackle them continuously.
3. Management of staff on long term sick leave
has generally been poor, and the Department for Transport for
example has only in recent months reviewed long-term cases and
taken disciplinary action where appropriate.
Long-term absence is the main cause of high sickness absence rates
in the Driving Standards Agency and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing
Agency, so these Agencies should carry out similar exercises as
a matter of urgency.
4. The central Department and the Government
Car Despatch Agency have no annual targets for reducing sickness
absence, whilst the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency's target
is only a one day reduction from the previous year's performance.
All three businesses should set realistic
but challenging targets to reduce sickness absence levels.
5. The Department's recent Capability Review
found that only 47% of the Department's staff are proud to work
for it and recommended that the new Permanent Secretary should
use his vision of the Department to re-energise and motivate staff.
The Department and agencies are taking
steps to identify good leaders and to develop their leadership
capability. They need to pay particular attention to repetitive
work, where sick leave tends to be higher, to make staff feel
valued and motivated to come to work.
6. The Capability Review found that the role
of the Department in relation to its agencies and its oversight
of Human Resources and other functions is unclear. So
while there are pockets of good practice across the Department
and its agencies there is no formal mechanism for sharing them
more widely. The Department should take the lead to encourage
more systematic sharing of good practice by raising the profile
of staff sickness management within the department and across
agencies. It should organise workshops, conferences and training
events for line managers and Human Resources Directors.
7. Sickness absence is sometimes used inappropriately
by staff in place of annual leave. Comparatively
simple measures which allow staff to use their annual leave more
flexibly, for example by requesting a day off at very short notice,
appear to have resulted in a significant reduction in sickness
absence. The Department and Agencies should:
a. draw on information from return to work interviews
and other sources to determine if sickness absence is used in
place of annual leave to cover unplanned absence; and if so
b. implement measures which allow staff throughout
the Department and Agencies to use their annual leave provisions
more flexibly.
8. The Highways Agency has shown that if used
to good effect, practices such as 'return to work interviews'
help line managers identify and deal with underlying issues, such
as general ill health and low morale. The
Department and other agencies have policies to deal with sickness
absence but line managers are not complying with them. To address
this issue:
a. the Department and its agencies need to hold
managers to account for compliance with existing policies and
practices in the management of sickness absence; and
b. training for the introduction of the Shared
Services Centre will need to reinforce the role of line managers
in managing sickness absence.
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