Metropolitan Police Federation

'Phone call overtime' story takes a faulty line

Recent reports in sections of the media that police officers are paid hundreds of pounds for answering work-related telephone calls while off duty are sensational and also completely untrue.

Overtime is paid if the call requires an officer to take action in his or her off-duty time.

But the simple act of talking to a manager or a colleague - to learn, for example, that their duty hours have been changed - will earn them precisely nothing and nor would they expect it to.

Officer will often receive and make work–related calls on their mobile phones, which they are expected to pay for themselves.

The reports also fail to mention the thousands of hours a year which officers work for no pay out of goodwill, whether it is turning up before their shift to complete paperwork or doing youth work to help divert young people from crime.

The quality of policing in London would drop markedly if this goodwill was ever withdrawn, although, fortunately, there is no danger of that ever happening.

The Metropolitan Police Federation has argued for many years that there should be sufficient officers on-duty 24/7 to obviate the need for those who are off duty to be disturbed.

This was, indeed, how things were 30-odd years ago. The present system was introduced to save money.

Officers do not work overtime because they choose to but because they are ordered to in order to serve the public.