Ministerial task force for health, safety and productivity

Objective

The objective of the Task Force is to ensure that ministerial and management effort is devoted to securing culture change in the management of sickness absence in the civil service and wider public sector.

Terms of reference

• to ensure that the government's departments and agencies have in place plans to reduce sickness absence rates;
• to inform and deliver the 'Review of the Public Sectors management of long-term sickness absence';
• to develop new approaches to managing health and safety issues in ways that deliver sustainable improvements by focusing on the prevention of work related sickness absence and getting people back to work sooner;
• to ensure that best practice in managing health and safety and sickness absence is shared across all departments and the wider public sector;
• to monitor progress and ensure that improvements are achieved, sustained and disseminated.

Short term purpose

To deliver the Chancellor's review of the public sector's management of long-term sickness absence and to report to the Chancellor in  autumn 2004. The scope of the wide-ranging review will include, but not be limited to:

• the relative cost to the public sector of long-term absences;
• trends in the level and causes of long-term absence;
• good practice from across the public and private sectors, including contact with line managers, HR and occupational health professionals and management of the return to work; and,
• the scope for piloting innovative approaches across the public sector, including incentives for good attendance.

Long term role of the task force

• agree the overall target for reductions in sickness absence rates for the public sector and the contribution individual departments will make;
• make recommendations to ensure that targets are achieved and that improvements are sustained;
• agree arrangements for sharing best practice;
• consider what more can be done on prevention and getting absent employees back into work.

Task Force Membership:

Chair: Lord Bill McKenzie Department of Work and Pensions

Ministers from:

• HM Treasury
• Cabinet Office
• Home Office
• Department of Health
• Department for Communities and Local Government
• Ministry of Defence
• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
• Scottish Executive
• National Assembly for Wales

Secretary - Mark Dempsey Health and Safety Executive.

Progress

A joint review by the Task Force and Cabinet Office on “Managing Sickness Absence in the Public Sector” was produced in November 2004 in time for the Chancellor’s Pre Budget Report.

The review concluded that further action was needed in three main areas to:

• secure sustained commitment from managers at the top level;
• deliver the right data and systems to support better attendance management; and,
• provide leadership and support for line managers. 

It also proposed a series of pilots to explore innovative approaches to some long standing issues and longer term actions to address working practices and long term absence issues. The Task Force agreed a plan for the delivery of the review in February 2005.  This work was acknowledged in the Chancellor’s budget.

In November 2005 a Stakeholder Summit was held to review progress made since the publication of the review and to ensure that major stakeholders continued to keep sickness absence high on the public sector management agenda.  The Summit saw the publication of the “One Year On” Report where the key developments were:

• A fall in average number of working days lost across Government from 10 to 9.1 days;
• Improvements in the collection and management of data;
• The ability to compare organisations on a ‘like for like’ basis.

In September 2006 the work commissioned by the Joint Review on “The Well Managed Organisation” was published jointly by the Task Force and The Work Foundation.  This comprised of a suite of three documents:

• Guidelines for Boards
• Guidelines for HR Directors and Senior Managers of Business Units
• Diagnostic Tools for Handling Sickness Absence

More recently the Task Force has had reports back from representatives of the civil service, local authorities and national health service on their sickness absence figures and their plans to address specific problem areas.

The Task Force work plan for 2007 includes looking at improvements to occupational health services, links to the Health Work and Wellbeing strategy and the need for individual ministers to champion the productivity and sickness absence agenda in their own departments the the public sector areas they sponsor.