Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of the number of days of work lost because of bullying in the workplace in the last 12 months.

Justin Tomlinson

DWP does not tolerate bullying in any form.

Guidance on our approach to dealing with and managing bullying is available to all employees and managers, and our policy is that all cases of bullying should be reported.

DWP capture absence data in a format that is standard across the Civil Service, which is by absence ‘type’. Each absence may have a number of underlying causes, therefore it is not possible to estimate the number of days of work lost because of bullying. Nevertheless, DWP’s current Average Working Days Lost stands at 6.28 which is the lowest it has been in the last 12 months, and down substantially compared to 5 years ago when it stood at 8.2.