Tax workers have a greater entitlement of sick leave days than generally found in the private sector.

Tax workers are taking double the number of " sickies" than the national average, government figures have revealed.

The Inland Revenue Department's latest filing shows its employees took an average 10.2 days leave for illness in the 12 months to the end of June 2015 .

That's more than twice the 4.7 days Southern Cross said was the national average last year, though its data is from a survey of workers rather than hard data collected from employers.

Now, the Taxpayers' Union believes it is time to benchmark state sector sick leave with the private sector.

The annual reviews of Government departments and agencies are being tabled in Parliament revealing an apparent gulf between the private sector and some state sector organisations.

Not all the reviews have yet been tabled, but the taxman is currently leading the rankings for the sickest Government department.

Every year Government departments and corporations have to report to Parliament on a long list of operational matters, from the number of Koru Club passes they have to the number of credit cards staff they carry. Sick leave is among the things reported.

Workforces facing physically tougher work, such as the Police come pretty close at 9.8, Corrections at 7.26.and KiwiRail at 7.4, though Housing New Zealand came in at 8.6.

Most Government agencies that have reported so far have hovered either side of a full working week, like the Ministry of Primary Industries at 5.84.

Star performers included TVNZ at 2.5 days, and Fairway Resolution, which handles ACC reviews, at 3.3.

Many ministries and organisations came in under the week mark including New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (4.06), EQC (4.59) the Commerce Commission (4), the Serious Fraud Office (4.4), and Worksafe (3.5).

Williams said: "There's no excuse why the IRD should be higher than the police."

He said: "Government departments should be benchmarking themselves against the private sector. There would be few private sector organisations where the average employee takes two weeks off a year sick."

It was "deeply troubling" to see how high the average of some departments was, he said, particularly if they mainly employed desk-based staff with little direct contact with the public.

There appear to be two reasons why sick days are taken more often in Government departments compared to the private sector.

The first is that Government workers often have longer leave entitlements.

Mike Treen from the Unite Union said private sector employment contracts usually allowed only the bar minimum of five days sick leave. "When I entered the workforce in the 1970s, it was ten days. It got reduced to the bare minimum in private employment contracts."

But that paring away of sick leave allowances had not happened as much in Government departments, he believed. Many workers had allowances of ten days or more.

A spokesman for the IRD said: "There are different sick leave entitlements depending on length of service and when the employee began working at Inland Revenue. But the standard arrangement most full time people are entitled to is 11 days' paid sick leave a year for the first two continuous years of service. After two years' service, this increases to 15 days' paid sick leave a year.'

He said the IRD's sick leave averages were consistent with other similar departments.

Treen said private sector workers with lower sick leave allowances had to learn to live within their allowance even if they were sick. This could include working while ill, or swapping shifts. The self-employed and contractors got no sick leave entitlement.

Southern Cross noted that larger organisations, both private and state, where employees work would be covered by other staff members if they were absent had the highest levels of absenteeism. It was lowest among smaller employers where workers' absences would be most keenly felt.

The Public Sector Association (PSA), a union of government workers, said the differences between departments were explained by differences in the way Government departments counted sick leave, and whether they had a lot of staff dealing directly with the public, exposing them to infection.

The PSA dismissed any suggestions that public sector workers were malingering compared to private sector workers.

Rounded figures for average sick leave, and published in Appendix three of the State Services Commission's Human Resources Capability report indicate the IRD may not have the highest average sick leave.

It has Customs and the Ministry of Social Development (which includes Work and Income) have a rounded average of ten days each, but until the two departments file their annual review answers with Parliament, the exact numbers will not be known, though as there are 240 departments, crown entities, crown research institutes, companies, subsidiaries, and other government enterprises and organisations, compiling a complete table is challenging.

SICK NOTES

Private health insurer Southern Cross Wellness in the Workplace Survey indicated…