THE Isle of Man has lost the staggering sum of more than £48 million in the last four years in respect of lost working days through government staff being on sick leave.

However, the figures are not considered to be excessive, as the average for the UK over the same period is very similar and in the majority of cases higher.

The statistics were released yesterday in a written response to a question from Onchan MHK Zac Hall who was also interested in how many government staff were signed off sick for long term periods, including more than 200 days in one year.

The figures provided by government showed that 50 staff had more than 200 days off sick in the 2007-08 financial year, but the figure has been falling since and last year was only 9.

The figures also show that around 5,000 government staff had a 100% attendance record in 2007-08, but this figure has been slipping since and during 2010-11 had fallen to 4,453, although the  number of government employees at present is at its lowest for some time.

A summary of the figures:-

YEAR AMOUNT IOM UK

2007-08 £10.4m 7.2 days 9 days

2008-09 £12m 7.7 days n/a

2009-10 £12m 7.4 days 8.3 days

2010-11 £13.7m 8.4 days 8.1 days