Concerns have been raised about sickness absence and vacancy levels in the Northern Ireland civil service.

There was an average of 13.8 days lost per year by public service staff in 2023/24, up from 12.3 days the previous year, according to the Northern Ireland Agency for Statistics and Research.

This represented 6.3% of available working days in 2023/24 and equated to an estimated direct wage cost of £44m.

The Stormont Finance Committee also heard on Wednesday about high levels of vacancies in departments for a number of reasons, including budget issues.

Catherine Shannon, from the Department of Finance, said anxiety, stress and depression accounted for the majority of lost working days.

She also told the committee that the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) recently published statistics for the first quarter of this year, where most departments saw a drop in absenteeism compared to the previous quarter.

“We recognize the need for an understanding and supportive approach to managing sickness absence, and the significant impact of ill-health on the cost and quality of service delivery,” she told MPs.

She said they have developed a multi-level sickness absence management toolkit for managers to help them manage staff absences appropriately and developed an absence analysis mechanism.

“Our focus for the coming year is to promote a preventative approach to occupational health,” she added, highlighting the services available to staff.

Commission chairman Matthew O’Toole said the civil service in Northern Ireland was in a “very bad place when it comes to the level of long-term sick leave”.

Ms Shannon said that was why they had made a proactive and sustained effort to address the issue.

He pressed Ms Shannon why the levels were so high.

She responded by saying they were looking at the reasons, including a general rise in Northern Ireland in mental health illness and long health waiting lists.

“It’s multi-faceted, which is why we’ve tried to come at it from a number of different angles in terms of working with our departmental colleagues to launch a mental health forum, looking at our wider public sector to see if there different works that we can do together collectively,” she said.

“We absolutely recognize that it’s a problem and we’re committed to the initiatives that we’ve started to take forward this year and we plan to take them further to address this and hopefully bring these numbers down.”

UUP MP Steve Aiken questioned officials about prison officers, saying the level of stress in their ranks was significant and claimed some had indicated to him they felt the support they received from the civil service was “sub-optimal”.

Ms Shannon said she was continually looking to improve services.

“There’s an acknowledgment that we’re always going to want to improve, and we can improve, absolutely, and we want to do that and we’re committed to doing that,” she said.

Regarding the vacancies, Ms Shannon said that due to the budget position, they were not able to fill the vacancies.

“Really, the budget situation has caused a slowdown in recruiting in some areas, and that’s exacerbating the situation in terms of temporary promotion levels and the ability to fill some of those vacancies permanently,” she said.

Ms Shannon was asked about a case recently highlighted by the Belfast Telegraph of a civil servant who had been on a temporary promotion for 18 years.

She told the committee it was “fixed”.

She said there were around 2,792 temporary promotions in September, around 10% of the Northern Ireland civil service, and of these, 683 were for one to two years, 530 for two to four years and 177 for over four years.