PAY FOR PERFORMANCE:

Civil servants' sick leave on the increase (Annie Kelly, November 2, 2004, The Guardian)

Civil servants take an average two weeks' sick leave a year - costing £368m - according to government figures published today.

Civil servants took an average of 10 days' sick leave in 2003, amounting to 4.9m working days lost across the civil service in one year alone, the Cabinet Office figures show.

The figures blow the government's chances of meeting its target of cutting absenteeism in its workforce by a third by the end of last year.

In 1998, it set out ambitious targets to cut the average sick leave to 7.2 days by 2003, but today's figures show that there has been an increase from the 9.8-day average in 2002.

Like all progressive ideas, civil service reform has been disastrous in practice, however rational it appeared on paper. One of the quiet revolutions of the first Bush term has been the movement towards privatizing the civil service and subjecting it to normal market pressures.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 2, 2004 9:06 AM