Police overtime nearly doubles even though force numbers up

Overtime payments in England and Wales soared by around 90 per cent between 1999 and 2009, hitting 400m last year, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies said yesterday.

The rise came as the number of police officers reached a high of 142,151 in 2009 – 15,337 more than a decade ago, the study found.

Researchers said overall policing costs also grew by a "remarkable" 48 per cent over the 10-year period, from 9.8bn to 14.5bn.

After the future of the policing budget became one of the key battlegrounds during the General Election campaign, the centre said its findings meant that a public debate about police priorities was needed "more than ever".

The centre's director Richard Garside questioned the value obtained from the huge spending rise as well as the rationale for it.

He said: "Spending has gone up by nearly a half but the value of this huge increase is much harder to pin down.

"We now have the largest police service ever. Yet there seems to be no clear rationale behind this incremental growth, nor a clear measure of its success.

"Is there a point in having a 'reserve army' of this magnitude? Now more than ever we need a public debate about priorities and choices."

The report's compilers said the rise in overtime appeared "counter-intuitive" given the current size of the workforce.

But "the Home Office recognises its (overtime's) 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 had been sustained by "significant increases" in council tax bills.

It calculated that from 2003/04 onwards, council tax had provided around a fifth of police revenue expenditure.

The growth in civilian staff, including police community support offices, has also outstripped that in police officers, the report said.

There were 77,609 civilian staff last year, up from 52,975 a decade ago. The number of PCSOs reached 16,331 in 2009.

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."

n An independent inquiry into the death of a woman after she was released from police custody found nothing more could have been done to protect her.

Marilyn Bowden, 53, of Chesham, Buckinghamshire, was discovered dead in the street the morning after she was arrested by police last November.

She had been held at Aylesbury police station for almost seven hours where she attempted to harm herself in a cell by banging her head against a wall.

Thames Valley Police referred the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) to see if officers could have done more to safeguard her.

Mike Franklin, of the IPCC, said there was no evidence of any criminal or misconduct offences by police.