BBC staff take 91,000 sickies a year costing more than £12 million of licence-fee payers’ cash
Taxpayers foot the bill for corporation with astonishing figures well above national average for staff absence
BBC staff had 91,992 days off sick last year — with licence fee payers picking up the £12.5million bill.
It means nearly 250 years’ worth of working days were lost due to illness in the past 12 months.
Figures released under a Freedom of Information request reveal Corporation staff working in the global news and world service departments took an average of nearly eight days off each.
There was a similar level of absentees in Northern Ireland and Wales.
Those figures are well above the national average, which, according to the Office for National Statistics in 2014, stood at 4.4 days a year off.
More than 17,500 days were lost by BBC news employees in the English regions, who took an average of nearly seven days off each in 2015.
There was a similar average in Scotland where nearly 8,000 days were lost to sickness.
Only employees working for the BBC Trust and BBC Television and those in the North had an average of less than three days off each year.
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The Beeb employs more than 19,000 people and has a wage bill of a massive £990million.
A Corporation spokesman said the number of sick days had fallen by 14 per cent since 2010.
He added: “The employee average is broadly in line with the national average.
"We take the wellbeing of our staff seriously, and provide a number of health-related support schemes.”