Back to the UK’s bloated civil service. As if the government didn’t have enough on its plate trying to slash Whitehall red tape, the number of sick days taken by civil servants won’t help Sir Keir Starmer’s army pick up the pace on progress. Civil servant absences are on track to reach a record high – and the Foreign Office is no exception to the trend. Mr S can reveal the number of sick days taken by David Lammy’s mandarins shot up by more than 50 per cent in the financial year ending March 2024 compared to the previous year – while the number of days lost to mental health issues soared by more than three-quarters.

A Freedom of Information response has shown that in the period from April 2023-March 2024, almost 30,000 days were lost to sick leave within the Foreign Office department, a r

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