FOI Number of mental health sick days taken by force employees since 2010 (0787-2022/23)

Request

I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information from your Police Force. Please may you provide me with:

Q1. The total number of FTE sick days taken off by police officers where mental health was provided as the reason, by financial year, since 2010.
Q2. The total number of FTE sick days taken by all staff where mental health was provided as the reason, by financial year, since 2010.
Q3. The total number of police officers in your force, by financial year, since 2010.

If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact me via email and I will be very happy to clarify what I am asking for and discuss the request.

 

Response

Extent and Result of Searches to Locate Information

To locate the information relevant to your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by North Yorkshire Police.

Decision

I have today decided to disclose the located information to you.

For Q1 & Q2 we are unable to answer the count of days between the sickness start and end due to not knowing the officers respective shift pattern during the absence, any part time equivalent calculation, discounting any BH’s FTE/pro rata rate etc. I’ve answered this question by counting the number of absences relating to psychological reasons for each period for both police officers and staff – please note some officers may have more than one period of absence for each financial year period.

Q1. Please see the table below which details the number of absences for Police Officers where mental health was provided as the reason for the absence from 1 April 2014 to 10 January 2022, broken down by financial year.

Financial Year	Number of Absences
2014/2015	91
2015/2016	136
2016/2017	161
2017/2018	130
2018/2019	195
2019/2020	163
2020/2021	112
2021/2022	191

 

Q2. Please see the table below which details the number of absences for Police Staff where mental health was provided as the reason for the absence from 1 April 2014 to 10 January 2022, broken down by financial year.

Financial Year	Number of Absences
2014/2015	83
2015/2016	121
2016/2017	90
2017/2018	104
2018/2019	164
2019/2020	173
2020/2021	111
2021/2022	144

 

Q3. Please see the table below which details the number of Police Officers employed by North Yorkshire Police on the 31st March for each period, broken down by financial year.

Financial Year	Number of Officers
2014/2015	1431
2015/2016	1381
2016/2017	1418
2017/2018	1399
2018/2019	1424
2019/2020	1530
2020/2021	1524
2021/2022	1618

 

Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.