Record numbers of sick civil servants at the Department for Work and Pensions are costing taxpayers more than £100m a year, the National Audit Office reveals in a report today.
Last year 110,000 of 142,000 staff in benefit offices, the Child Support Agency and pension centres were off ill for periods from one-day "sickies" to months - leaving the offices 6,800 staff short on every working day of the year.
The figures released by parliament's financial watchdog reveal a demoralised department where thousands of people claim stress and anxiety as one of the main reasons why they take long-term sick leave.
The DWP has the worst record of any Whitehall department with the exception of the prison service. Its nearest rivals are Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence.
Most of the cost to the taxpayer comes from Whitehall's sick pay scheme, which allows employees six months off work on full pay and for another six months on half-pay.
The department records an average of 12.6 days lost for each member of staff. Since one third of the staff took no sick leave at all, the figure is higher, showing the average of 18.6 days lost among those who were absent.
One-day "sickies" accounted for 101,250 instances, with 17,844 citing food poisoning and stomach upsets as the main cause of illness. Another 14,617 said they took a day off because of a cold or flu and 13,537 said they were suffering from migraine and headaches.
Among the 15,114 who took a month or more off work, over a third, 5,512, cited stress, depression and anxiety as the main reason why they were ill. This was more than three times the number who were off work recovering from operations and six times the number off work because of accidents and injuries. There were 362 people off work for the whole year.
The figures also show widespread differences between sickness rates in different parts of the country and between counter staff and senior civil servants responsible for policy changes. The highest absence rates were in offices in the inner London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Wandsworth. The lowest rates - 8.7 days lost days per employee - were in Rutland and Lincolnshire.
The highest rates of sickness were among staff who had the lowest paid, most stressful or repetitive jobs, often working in call centres, on benefit office counters or recording data. The lowest rates were among the top executives including managers responsible for the frequent reorganisation of benefit offices.
The figures also showed a wide variation in sick leave among different age groups. Those over 55 were more often sick, but so were staff, especially women, under 30. The most reliable members of staff are the middle-aged, those between 41 and 50, who have the lowest sickness rates.
The department has tried to combat high levels of sickness by having compulsory interviews for suspected workshy people and local health promotion initiatives, such as encouraging staff to go the gym or eating more healthy food. But many staff had no idea about what help was available and some managers did not believe that attendance at work was their main responsibility. Some had no accurate records - 700 people classified as long-term sick had either left the civil service or were working.
Edward Leigh, Tory chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, said: "Progress must be made. The department has developed a sensible sickness absence policy but the problem is that too many of the good practices are not yet being implemented... the elaborate machinery is in place but is so far whirring away to little effect."
A spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union put the blame on continual reorganisations and stress. "With the prospect of another 30,000 jobs being lost this has added to the lack of morale," he said.
A DWP spokesperson said: "The majority of DWP staff have a good attendance record, a third of staff take no sick leave at all and another third take fewer than five days off. However, we also recognise that more needs to be done to help prevent absence and to support our staff when returning to work after periods of illness."
