Millions of days of sick leave are being racked up by civil servants each year (Image: Getty)
Civil servants working for the taxman have taken 1.6 million sick days in the last three years, "shocking" figures have revealed. Tories hit out at the "sickness culture" across the public sector after records showed more than half a million days a year were lost at HMRC.
The absences are costing Britons millions of pounds at a time when the country "can least afford it", it was warned. Helen Whately, shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “These statistics are shocking – far too many days are being lost to sick leave.
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"This is unfair on taxpayers and damaging to productivity at a time when Britain can least afford it. People should only be signed off if they are genuinely too ill to work. Yet too many sick notes are handed out without proper care or consideration for what’s best for patients, employers and taxpayers. This broken system is keeping people out of work and holding the country back from growth.
Read more: Civil servants took over 91,000 days of sick leave without fit notes last year
“The last Conservative government began the reforms needed to fix the sick note system and help people back into work – but Labour scrapped them.
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"Instead, their watered-down welfare bill will push more people out of work while Britain is already struggling under Labour’s economic mismanagement.
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"Only the Conservatives have a serious plan to cut the welfare bill, restore productivity and get Britain working again.”
The total number of sick days declared by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs between August 2024 and July 2025 was 551,064, down slightly from the 565,244 sick days taken the previous year, but up on the 540,052 days recorded between August 2022 and July 2023.
The civil service is losing more than four million working days to staff sickness a year and absence rates have risen by more than 10% a year in some departments, figures showed earlier this year.
Some officials have blamed the rise on rules imposed under the previous Conservative government that said civil servants needed to spend at least 60% of their time in the office after widespread home working during Covid.
People who were calling in sick when previously they might have been prepared to work from home, it has been suggested.
Over the past year, HMRC injected ￡485,019 into its employee assistance programme (EAP) programme, which offers free, confidential support for work, family and personal issues to all of its staff.
This service includes a 24/7 helpline, counselling sessions and access to online resources and workshops.
That budget has been slashed over the past two years, previously sitting at ￡967,134.
Critics warned the programme is ineffective because halving the budget has had hardly any impact on the number of sick days taken.
Elliot Keck, head of campaigns at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “It’s not just HMRC that is afflicted with a sick note culture. Sadly it’s a problem across the whole economy. But in the public sector it is so much worse, and clearly is particularly a problem in our tax collector.”
He added: “But if the staff at HMRC are miserable, think about taxpayers. Taxpayers dealing with the estates of recently-passed relatives. Soon to be retirees with questions about claiming their state pension. Change is long overdue.”
Whitehall officials have said the sickness level among civil servants was lower than both the wider public sector and private sector comparators.
Read more: Nigel Farage makes huge Reform prediction moments after Angela Rayner quits
Meanwhile the Department for Business and Trade’s EAP budget was ￡50,000 last year. It has 20,574 working days lost between in the year to July 2025, a FOI showed. The Government Legal Department lost 13,846 days between April 2024 and March 2025, with 133 employees referred to the EAP for support in this period.
Forecasts suggest the benefits bill for sickness and disability could top ￡90 billion within five years.
Senior Tory MP Esther McVey said: “The sickness levels across the public sector are nothing short of a scandal. Is there any reason why people who work in the public sector should be more unhealthy than those working in the private sector? Of course not. This is a problem of culture where those employed across the public sector seem to think that sick days are an extension of holidays. If the public sector can manage without all of these days being taken sick then it surely means the public sector could cope with a huge swathe of cost cutting by scrapping lots of jobs completely.
“I am pretty sure that message would find some of these workshy public sector workers make a miraculous recovery and be back in the office in a flash.”
Estimates by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) show that Britain’s welfare spending is forecast to balloon to ￡378billion by 2029/30 – almost double the ￡210billion paid out to claimants in 2013-14.
There has been an increase in worklessness since the pandemic, with figures from NHS England showing 11.01 million notes were issued in 2022-23, up from 5.2 million in 2015-16.
One in 10 of the country’s 38 million working-age people is in receipt of some kind of health benefit, according to official data.
In November 2024, nearly four million people aged between 16 and 64 were claiming some form of payment for disability or sickness.
Public sector sickness rates are almost 50% higher on average than those in the private sector, figures published by the Office for National Statistics this summer showed that.
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Arkadiy Ukolov, CEO of Ulla Technology, said: “Every day taken sick is a day that slows down public services, stalls important work, and costs the taxpayer.
“Whether it’s burnout, illness or a lack of motivation, HR teams need to get their house in order, putting in place programs and policies to keep staff in work."
An HMRC spokesman said: "Our sickness absence rates are in line with averages across the UK workforce. The reduction in EAP costs does not reflect a reduction in services but improved procurement and better contractual terms, saving taxpayers' money."
By Elliot Keck, head of campaigns at the TaxPayers' Alliance
Just imagine. You’re purchasing a new property, somewhere on the south coast perhaps. Complicated arrangements around your children and previous home means you’re not sure if you need to pay an additional surcharge on stamp duty as it may count as a second property.
Who do you call for help? Well if not your lawyer or advisers what about HMRC, the nation’s benevolent tax collector?
We don’t know of course whether Angela Rayner contacted HMRC on this. But what we do know is if she tried, she may well have not gotten anywhere.
Because in January 2025 HMRC was forced to deny running a “deliberately” poor phone service to try and push taxpayers to seek help online. An extraordinary 44,000 customers were cut off after being on hold for more than an hour in 2024.
This is an appalling situation. It ignores the fact that there are households up and down the country who don’t have access to the internet, and don’t care to do so. But even if they do, flicking through an FAQ page doesn’t compare to chatting to someone over the phone.
Why can’t HMRC just pick up the phone?
Well one glaring reason is that a plague like wave of illness has crippled the organisation. A simply unbelievable 1.6 million sick days have been taken over the past three years, despite millions of pounds spent on health and wellbeing programmes.
What is even more shocking is that despite the budget for these programmes being halved, the number of sick days has remained static, suggesting they are completely ineffective.
It’s not just HMRC that is afflicted with a sick note culture. Sadly it’s a problem across the whole economy. But in the public sector it is so much worse, and clearly is particularly a problem in our tax collector.
Could it be related to the low-standards culture prevalent in HMRC? One in which staff aren’t expected to turn up to work, with work from home rife. One in which the endless scandals of how HMRC treats taxpayers don’t seem to ever lead to change. A culture of cover up.
But if the staff at HMRC are miserable, think about taxpayers. Taxpayers dealing with the estates of recently-passed relatives. Soon to be retirees with questions about claiming their state pension.
Change is long overdue.
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