There was a shocking report in Wales Online yesterday:
More than 17,000 days have been taken off work as a result of stress-related illness at tax offices across Wales over the past three years, shocking figures obtained by Plaid Cymru reveal.
In Carmarthen's Crown Buildings 42.64% of all absences in 2010-11 were stress-related, while in the same year it was 31.77% in Merthyr Tydfil, 31.71% in Porthmadog and 25.61% at Ty Nant, Swansea, according to information obtained by the party from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
At Wales' biggest tax office in Llanishen, Cardiff, where 2,442 full-time equivalents work, a total of 12,599 working days were taken off over the past three financial years because of stress — varying between 15.81% and 20.07% of overall sickness rates.
I am not surprised, but am saddened by this data.
HMRC staff have been subject to enormous pressure by cuts. Posts have been cut and not replaced. The burdens on some have become intolerable.
As bad, HMRC staff have to work in a service where the leadership of their own organisation has an anti-tax culture, and they in turn report to a government that clearly does not believe that it should solve our current national financial crisis by collecting the tax due to it.
It's very easy to understand why people who want to undertake their work professionally find it difficult to do so when all that they think of value in what they do is undermined by the people they work for.
Disclosure: I do work with PCS, the union who represent many staff at HMRC, and am proud to do so.
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I think this is part of a general trend involving many other professions -my own experience in teaching also confirms this. My own view is that a sense of futility and meaninglessness in work is a big issue in our society.
In a line-yer-wallet culture where only 1% gain and there is no sense of any other purpose, psychological problems will result. After WW2 there was a sense of working towards a more socially just and fairer society. That has been eroded over the last 40 years until were now at an utterly moronic stage where job satisfaction is often close to zero. I think we can expect an increase in mental health issues where even those that go ontp ESA can expect to be harassed, hassled and socially marginalised.
I work as a counsellor and see a number of people who work for both private and public bodies. This situation is not uncommon. Staff numbers are cut but the workload is not. Unpaid work seems to be expected in a growing number of places. If the powers that be said ‘we can no longer do XYZ’ it would be both honest and realistic. Unfortunately, they often say ‘we will continue to deliver after the “efficiency savings” ( often an oxymoron) and when staff ask how, thy are told they have to find a way. The task of management is to lead and set the strategy. This is not the case everywhere but I do hear it quite a lot. So the staff are not responsible for the situation but are accountable. If we tried to design a system which caused stress, it’s difficult to think of one which would be very different!
Agreed
What were the days lost to Stress before the recent government?
Then you can determine if it is due to cuts or just the usual…..
Just the usual? Do you mean just the usual neo-liberal dogma overriding commonsense and decency! An impossible mandate to fulfil under unbearable conditions. If so, I entirely agree.
Yes Richard,the stress figures have increased steadily over the last few years – official data I see backs that up. It is not easy to say for certain exactly what causes stress highlighted here, but it would be daft to think the issues Richard M mentions are not a factor. Some other influences are also at play here. Staff are routinely working longer hours (unpaid); the performance levels demanded increase year on year while resources diminish; many low grade staff are on low pay and require second jobs to keep up with outgoings; pay in real terms is about 20% lower than it was in 2009 and so family finances are tight; job security is minimal; a deeply unpopular,punitive performance management system is now in place that automatically judges 10% of them as poor performers; and an aggressive sickness management system is used which makes staff frightened to fall ill, and results in many with serious health problems to be ‘supported to leave the organisation’.
This can result in a culture of presenteeism whereby people turn up for work when they really aren’t well enough because they are scared any sickness absence could leave them vulnerable. Of course they end up making mistakes or infecting their colleagues. (Incidentally, there are numerous studies that show presenteeism is more damaging and costly to business than absenteeism)
It used to be the case that the Civil Service was a very supportive employer when it came to long term health issues. The problem with that approach is it skews the sickness absence stats, which the CS is frequently hammered for by much of the media. The reality is, casual sick absence is pretty low; however, the best way to improve the stats and get the media off your back is to get rid of those pesky people with serious health issues. Once they are unemployed they are someone else’s problem.
Again, don’t think Mr. M will allow a right of reply but….
“punitive performance management system is now in place that automatically judges 10% of them as poor performers…”
Ohh, you mean that some of them are having to work for a living.
“the performance levels demanded increase year on year while resources diminish…”
In the past couple of years the firm I work for has cut thousands of jobs at one plant alone and we all know that if don’t get a grip, we’re all up the road as the firm will close the plant. Not ‘redeployed’ from one desk job in one bit of the CS to another….but sacked, chopped, made redundant…..
….so it is a case of do more with less.
“aggressive sickness management system is used which makes staff frightened to fall ill…”
So no more ‘hangover days’ then. Guess what, out beyond the safe harbour of the Civil Service, active sickness management systems have been around for years in all sorts of firms….and sometimes HR people aren’t always nice and smiley about things.
You really do sink to the lowest level of argument don’t you?
An eye for an eye appears to be your standard
Is it necessary that we aspire to the worst standards of employee relations and employee conditions?
This is not at all surprising given all the reasons mentioned above. There is a pernicious culture which comes down from the Government via the Board of HMRC which believes that people who work in the Civil Service at the front line are not to be trusted to get on with their work in a professional way and have to be (mis)managed by the use of often dubious targets,a toxic performance appraisal system where if you question any new initiative imposed by management you are automatically classed as demonstrating behaviours that are not acceptable to HMRC and regardless how good your technical tax ability may be you are given a “must improve” mark, and over reliance on inappropriate tick box checks that do not actually evaluate how good a service the public is getting. I am fortunate enough to be retiring this year but many of my younger colleagues are very disillusioned with the way HMRC is going so stress levels are bound to have increased.
Your comments reflect all I hear
You have no evidence whatsoever to indicate whether the stress is work related or influences outside of work. Nor have you given any comparative figures to show whether the problem is worse or better than it was (say) five or 10 years ago.
As always, a superficial glance at a headline and you expand it into an absurdity, this time that HMRC leadership has an ‘anti-tax’ culture and that this is to blame for people being off work.
A disingenuous blog which hijacks and insults those members of staff off work because of personal issues.
Have you read the comments by an HMRC employee on here?
And do you think I don’t talk to them, even though I reported that I do?
The disingenuity is all yours
And yet you still won’t provide the data that shows a time series for stress-related illnesses for HMRC, nor will you provide data showing the equivalent statistics for other professions.
In isolation the statistics you quote are meaningless. And you should know that.
I do not know that
I take it in the context of other information
All information is contextual
“varying between 15.81% and 20.07% of overall sickness rates….”
Doubt this will get through but….
Hmm….I wonder why the sickness rates in the public sector are always way higher than in the private sector…?
So some in the public sector white collar brigade are having to work harder and they don’t like it so off they go with ‘stress’….and some commentators are now saying that the CS is getting a bit harsher with the ‘long term sick types’….hate to say it…welcome to the real world.
And like Mr. M. I’m a TU member as well, the difference is I don’t have a pension underwritten by the taxpayers that will pay out far more than the contributions of the workers that paid in to it….
…and of course if me and my colleagues don’t deliver the firm goes bust and we all go up the road….and only now the CS types are whining that job security is getting a little less…..guess what…in the private sector it’s been like that for years.
Like I said, I doubt that Mr. M. will publish this but I’m sure he’s intelligent enough to know that lots of people think like I do and don’t really have a lot of time for those in the CS complaining about how tough life is when in the private sector wages have been frozen and jobs slashed.
I repeat; petty nastiness is unappealing and you have succeeded in bringing it to this blog
Mr. M,
Balls of brass & nerves of steel….Top Notch for publishing. My, umm, thoughts probably bring a bit of a different outlook to you your blog.
You really seem to have bought into the media vilification of the public sector, which has been allowed, undefended by politicians and public sector senior leaders!
Do you have a vision that they are all bone idle Sir Humphrey types who do nothing all day but drink cups and dream ups ways to hemorrhage taxpayer money?
Weirdly no…..because I fully support the position of the staff down at Abbey Wood etc. who take a huge kicking on a regular basis because our newspapers can’t tell the difference between ‘Pen Pusher’ and ‘Skilled Engineer actually doing a job that if the taxpayer had to pay for a ‘bod in uniform’ to do would cost way more’.
But I find it hard to swallow when ‘white collar types’ in the public sector tell us all how tricky things are when those of us in the private sector have sailed for years on ‘rough seas’ and at times seen part of the ship we’re on actually awash.
My argument is that when it comes to job security and the safety of pension funds….the public sector is so far out in front of the private sector, they’ve really got nothing to complain about.
Think I’m being harsh? Look at what happened in the real world to the Mirror Group pensioners and those at Shearness in the steel business.
PS: Full credit Mr. M….I’d didn’t reckon you’d publish some of my earlier replies *tip ‘o the hard hat*
I wonder if you walk round the private sector with your eyes open and realise just how many also free-ride?
I worked in the private sector. Time off sick is severely frowned upon. Workers and staff frequently work through illness. There isn’t much choice really. After all, there is always that well-known management phrase: “where are you working tomorrow”
I think that is stereotypical
HMRC salaries have been frozen for the last 3 years which amounts to a pay cut due to inflation, pension contributions have doubled for many staff, and we have none of the private sector perks such as company cars, private health insurance ,etc
Ed: This comment was deleted as I am bored by civil servant bashing
It really is both tedious and ill-judged
Most private sector workers don’t have company cars or private health insurance, and those that do have to pay a significant tax on them..
Further, the fact the pension contributions have doubled, yet are still a fraction of the true cost of the pensions you will be receiving in the future, just goes to show how good you’ve had it for quite some time!
Of course the majority of the public sector work hard, likewise the private sector. But the latter is paying for the former, not the other way around!
Your last line is absurd
People who work in the public sector pay for the private sector and vice versa
All add value
To claim otherwise is bluntly ignorant
Allan,
I wonder if you can just clarify a few things?
When you use the term “pen pusher” & “white collar types”, who exactly are you meaning?
You see, the vast majority of public sector workers, especially in the lower paid grades, go to work & try to do the best they can for the public they serve!
So things have been tough in private sector for years, guess what? its been pretty tough for those in the public sector as well! but you seem to support a race to the bottom!