Force urged to “wipe slate clean” on Bank Holiday hours

SOUTH Yorkshire Police should stop trying to claw back thousands of hours from officers due to confusion over recording bank holiday hours, the Federation has said.

Neil Bowles, chairman of South Yorkshire Police Federation, (pictured) has urged the force to “wipe the slate clean” after a new system for recording duty hours left more than 1,000 officers owing between 2 and 28 hours back to the force.

Under Police Regulations officers are supposed to receive eight hours of paid leave for bank holidays, regardless of the shift they work.

With some officers working daily shifts longer than 8 hours, the force’s new recording system highlights any discrepancies, which – in theory – then have to be worked off or repaid by officers during the year. However, according to the Federation, supervisors were not properly told how to manage the new system.

As a result some officers “owe” the force as much as 28 hours of work.

The force would like to see those extra hours repaid to South Yorkshire Police. But Mr Bowles said: “The time cannot be deducted from annual leave without an officer’s consent. We would like the force to wipe the slate clean. It is unfair for officers to cough up now. We should put training in place for supervisors this year and ensure everyone is aware and the officers understand it.”

The issue impacts on officers working any VSA or flexible patterns that means their shifts are longer or shorter than eight hours.

All officers start the year with a pot of bank holiday hours, which amounts to eight hours multiplied by the number of bank holidays in a year.

If a bank holiday falls on a day that was a rest day, only 8 hours is taken from the pot and the rest day is re-rostered.

If the Bank Holiday would have been a scheduled shift of, for instance, 9, 10 or 12 hours, then those number of hours will be taken out of an individual officer’s annual Bank Holiday pot. But as officers only have eight hours paid leave for that day – and every other bank holiday throughout the year – they will immediately “owe” the force hours.

Officers still receive double time for the hours they work on a Bank Holiday.

“Supervisors were expected to manage the resulting deficits in the pot on a monthly basis,” added Mr Bowles, “but not one has confirmed that they have been instructed and trained into how to do this.”

Lorraine Booth, Head of HR strategy, said: “There was significant discussion with the Federation around this issue, and in consultation with the Federation, it was made clear that the 2012/13 period would be the start of the ‘reclaim’ period. A further agreement was made not to reclaim hours for 2011/12, this was to cushion the impact and to take a common sense approach.

“Communications on the intranet appeared in June 2012 and more recently as a reminder in April 2013, although many staff have actually worked that deficit down. There is now an extended deadline of 30th June to reduce the accrued public holiday hours to zero.

“There isn’t a training requirement as officers or line managers don’t need to actually ‘do’ anything to the system. They only need to contact the relevant department to advise how these hours will (or have been) repaid and for any that are still outstanding. They also now have an additional three months to complete this.”

Mr Bowles responded: “The argument is not about the principle – it’s about the fairness to individuals on their working time and how the issue has been managed.

“Whatever happened to goodwill? All officers come in early for their shifts anyway.”