Article: SICK NOTE SWINDLERS; Stay-away culture that's costing YOU [pounds sterling]250m every year Taxpayers foot [pounds sterling]250m bill for civil servants' absenteeism.

Byline: IAN SMITH

THE spiralling sick note culture among public sector workers is costing Scots taxpayers more than [pounds sterling]250million a year.

New figures released by the Scottish Executive reveal that rocketing absence levels among its own civil servants last year cost more than [pounds sterling]5million.

But when statistics for the country's 250,000 council workers are also taken into account, the true scale of the problem is staggering.

Local authority staff took an average of 12 days off work due to illness last year - a total of three million lost days, according to Audit Scotland.

Based on the average salary in ...

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