Teachers off sick - do the maths

 Today the news was that teachers were off sick - 14,000 people off sick per day.

The lefties were claiming this was due to high levels of stress and that teachers should be paid more to reflect the harsh environment of school.

What do the numbers actually say?

Let's assume the number is an average and not a peak on a particular day.

How many teachers are there in the UK?

641,840

How many teaching days are there in a school year?

195

Total number of sick days taken

14,000 x 195 = 2,730,000

So an average teacher takes 4.25 days per teaching year off as sick days (ignoring other days which may be contracted days of employment).

The median days taken sick across the population is 4.3 so actually this is a non story - teachers are about the national average.

The average number of sick days in the PRIVATE sector is 3.6 days per year and the civil service is 11.1 days so teachers are in fact healthier (or more honest) than the civil service at large.

So this is in fact a non story - the real story is the civil service are either very unhealthy or  woefully unproductive slackers.

Starmer stated today before Weds budget, that his government will be ruthless in clamping down on government waste - he should start here with his central government/civil servant slackers.

There are 3.79 MILLION central government employees.  I struggle to see what so many people are doing but let's assume that's how many people are needed.

Central government employees get 28 days paid holiday and 8 days public holidays. The average salary for central government employees is £67,500. Central Government employees get a final salary pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% of salary. So factoring in pension costs the average employment package of a Central Government employee is £87,055 per year. 

So a typical Central Government employee should work 224 days per year after holidays. Typically they are taking 11 days sick so they only work 213 days per year.  If sickness was at the national average they would work 220 days per year so 7 days per year per employee are being lost to "excess" sick days.

Assuming these employees actually worked 224 days per year, the cost to the tax payers per each day is £87,054/224 = £388.64

So a total of 26.5 Million excess days of Central Government effort is being lost per year.

At a cost of £388.64/day these "excess" sick days are costing the tax payer £10.3 BILLION per year.

If these central government employees stopped slacking off then Two Tier Kier could sack 118,438 people with zero impact saving tax payers  £10.3 Billion (the unit of measure for a Blackhole - a Rachel - is £20Billion) so this is half a Rachel.

This is just the tip of the ice berg.  

It should be pointed out that of the 31.5 million tax payers (workers?) ,  16 million either work for the government or are funded by the government.  Only 49% of working tax payers actually create wealth - the remaining 51% are a a tax burden.

I havent looked at the other 12.2 MILLION people hidden elsewhere in government but expect to find other examples of hideous waste.

Let up on the teachers - focus on the fat cat career politicians / civil servants.