Police overtime pay doubles to £400m a year

Spending on police overtime nearly doubled in the past decade despite record numbers of officers having been recruited, a report said today.

Overtime payments in England and Wales soared by about 90 per cent between 1999 and last year, when they hit £400 million, said the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.

Police numbers reached an all-time high of 142,151 last year — 15,337 more than a decade ago, the study found. Researchers said overall policing costs also grew by 48 per cent over the 10-year period, from £9.8 billion to £14.5 billion.

The report's authors said the rise in overtime appeared "counter-intuitive" given the size of the workforce. But "the Home Office recognises [overtime] is a necessary part in responding to unexpected major incidents", they added.

Spending on staff made up just over three-quarters of the overall costs (76 per cent), with the rest coming through capital expenditure, property, transport and other services.

The report also said the spending increase was sustained by "significant increases" in council tax bills. It calculated that from 2003/04 onwards, council tax provided a fifth of police revenue expenditure.

The growth in civilian staff, including police community support offices, has also outstripped that in police officers. There were 77,609 civilian staff last year, up from 52,975 a decade ago. The number of PCSOs also reached 16,331 in 2009, since they were introduced during 2002.

The report concluded: "The fact that spending has so vastly increased in the past decade should be a stimulus to fresh thinking about the shape and size of the police service as a whole.

"A new political debate about police numbers could become a sterile diversion unless there is a fundamental discussion about what the police are for, and what that means for the public purse."