Front Page - Times Newspaper - 4 December 2010
Posted on 08/12/2010 by Mark Botham
You may have seen the following which appeared last week. Whilst the article is reproduce in full we would ask you please to bear in mind that it omits to mention the physically demanding nature of the job, the type of people the police deal with day in, day out and the confrontation that officers face. Also that, compared to other parts of the public sector the figures compare favourably, including the figures for police support staff. Many police officers on restrictive duties can still perform a valuable, worthwhile and fulfilling role but it was ACPO who promoted the artificial cap (mentioned in the article) and now it is they who are complaining that too many officers are on restricted duties.
Almost 9,500 police officers are receiving full salaries totalling more than £285 million to complete paperwork or answer telephone calls, The Times can reveal.
The figures, compiled for the first time in four years, show an increase of nearly 20 per cent.
A further 2,000 officers, the equivalent of an entire police force, are on long-term sick leave and have been absent for at least a month because of ill health or injury.
It means that across England and Wales almost one in ten police officers are on sick leave or performing limited duties.
Police leaders have warned that officers too injured to work on the front line are in “limbo” because they are prevented from retiring. Some, on "restricted" or "recuperative" roles, work for just a few hours a week.
Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation which represents rank-and-file officers, said that many of the 6,086 officers with long-term health problems on "restricted duties" should be allowed to retire.
"The artificial cap on people being allowed to retire due to ill health, no more than six officers per thousand a year, was seemingly plucked out of thin air by the Home Office," he said.
"It means that many officers who have no likelihood of returning to frontline duties are not able to retire."
Mr McKeever added that because civilian workers carry out the large majority of backroom roles there are "very limited" opportunities for injured officers to perform a useful service away from the front line.
The Home Office insists that responsibility for decisions on retirement or rest duty lies with chief constables. A spokeswoman for the Association of Chief Police Officers admitted the figures were a concern, "particularly as we work to preserve numbers of officers on the front line. This issue is being considered as part of the Winsor review into police pay and conditions."
Officers on long-term sick leave receive their full salary for the first six months, and then half-pay for the next six months. There are at present 1,902 officers on long-term sick leave in England and Wales.
Those returning from sick leave are typically placed on recuperative duties and begin receiving their full salary, an average of £30,000 a year. There are 3,492 officers who fall into this category and are supposed gradually to increase their hours performing a limited range of tasks before eventually returning to full service.
A spokesman for the Home Office said: "Recuperative duties are a temporary arrangement while an officer recovers from sick leave. This allows officers who are unable to fulfil the full range of police duties to remain a police officer with restricted responsibilities, rather than to be retired."
The figures, compiled from freedom of information requests to every police force in England and Wales, show striking discrepancies between forces. Nearly one in seven police officers in Warwickshire is on sick leave or restricted duties, compared with just one in twenty-four in Cambridgeshire. A spokeswoman for Warwickshire Police said that a special management group was set up in May to address sickness absence in the force.
There are also big differences between neighbouring forces. West Yorkshire Police has 465 officers on restricted duties out of a total strength of 5,768, more than 24 times the proportion of officers on restricted duties in neighbouring North Yorkshire.
The Metropolitan Police, the country’s biggest force, faces the largest bill, with 2,163 officers on restricted or recuperative duties and another 300 on long-term sick leave. West Midlands, the second-biggest force, has 149 officers who have not worked for more than a month and 560 on limited duties.
A spokeswoman for the Met said that occupational health advisers were used to minimise the numbers placed on limited duties or long-term sick leave.
She said: "Despite the physically and mentally demanding nature of police work, absenteeism rates in the Met are low, ahead of most public sector organisations and other police services."
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