Police overtime pay up by £6 million

Police overtime payments hit £313 million last year, with one officer pocketing £45,000 on top of his regular pay.

The bill for 39 forces across England and Wales was up £6 million on the year before, a Freedom of Information request from the BBC has revealed.

The Metropolitan Police accounted for more than a third of the total, with one officer paid £45,000 for overtime. Another officer at West Midlands Police was paid £32,702 for working overtime in its call centre.

South Wales Police showed the biggest rise, from £5.2 million in 2013/14 to £8.4 million in 2014/15. That, though, was mostly down to the Nato summit last September, which meant a major policing effort.

And in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the figures were down. Police Scotland spent £18.2 million, down £6 million on the previous year, and the Police Service of Northern Ireland's bill dropped £6.9 million to £4.7 million.

Inspectors aren't paid overtime, but sergeants and constables are allowed to claim overtime pay for working extra days, for staying on at the end of a shift or for being recalled between shifts.

Four days a week, they're expected to work the first 30 minutes of unplanned overtime for free - a tradition known as 'half an hour for the Queen'.

In Bedfordshire and Cleveland, where overtime payments went up by 50%, the high bill is being blamed on gaps in recruitment.

But the chairman of the North Wales Police Federation, Simon Newport, says recent staffing cuts are to blame.

"It's inevitable that overtime budgets will be stretched and used in order to fulfil the posts that have been lost," he tells BBC Radio Wales.

But a Metropolitan Police spokesperson says that sometimes overtime is necessary to maintain operational effectiveness, and that the high rates reflect specialist expertise.

"In the context of capital city policing and national responsibilities, there are times when there is a genuine need to call on officers to work beyond their scheduled hours to police unforeseen events, to provide security, or public reassurance," he tells the BBC.

Three years ago, a review of policing in England and Wales called for changes to reduce the cost of overtime. One suggestion was that, like inspectors, sergeants could give up overtime pay in return for a higher salary.

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