Annual Leave

Compassionate/Special Leave Reg 33 Annex T Determinations

(Time off for Dependents)

An officer is entitled to be permitted by his/her Chief Officer to take a reasonable amount of time off during his/her normal duty periods in order to take action, which is necessary:

• Provide assistance to a dependant who is ill, gives birth or is injured or assaulted.
• Make arrangements for provision of care for a dependant who is ill or injured.
• In consequence of the death of a dependant.
• Due to an unexpected disruption or termination of arrangements for the care of a dependant.
• To deal with an incident that involves a child of the officer, which occurs unexpectedly whilst the child is in the care of an educational establishment.

A dependant is one of the following:

• A spouse
• A child
• A parent
• A person who reasonably relies on the officer for the arrangement of their care, lives in the same household and is not a tenant, lodger, boarder or employee.

Any leave that is granted shall be treated as duty.

Officers attending court who are recalled from annual leave, or unexpectedly recalled from other leave, will be compensated in respect of expenses incurred as follows:

• Any necessary travelling expenses incurred in attending court and returning to the holiday place;
• Any refreshment or subsistence allowance to which the officer may become entitled by reason of his attendance at Court;
• Expenditure over and above the allowance covered by the above, and within the limits of Police Regulations, necessarily incurred on food and lodgings because the officer’s home is closed.

The current Thames Valley Police Annual Leave Policy has two very different periods for booking leave. Long notice leave is defined as a period between 3 months and 15 months prior the desired leave period. Short notice leave is defined as leave booked with less than 4 months notice.

Long Notice – allows for abstraction rate of 20% of establishment not taking cognisance of any other abstraction

Short Notice – allows for abstraction rate of 25% of actual resources taking into account all abstractions

The current Thames Valley Police Annual Leave policy permits officers to book their leave up to 15 months prior to the first day of the desired leave period. We would encourage officers to book their leave as early as possible.

If a period of certified absence will over run a period of TOIL that you have booked, you must cancel the TOIL in advance of the day otherwise you will lose it. Unlike annual leave, you cannot retrospectively claim back TOIL after the TOIL day has passed. You must contact duties in advance of the TOIL date and advise them that you have been certified unfit to work and that this will cover a period of TOIL which you wish to cancel. Duties should then cancel the TOIL and put the hours back onto your TOIL total.

An officer who is unfit for duty through sickness whilst on a period of annual leave can claim the leave back. The Force has recently changed its policy so that no certificate is required if your period off work is less than 7 days. You can claim back annual leave retrospectively but this is NOT allowed with TOIL or Free Days. You must notify the force that you are sick BEFORE the day you have TOIL booked. The day can then be reallocated.

In an ideal world, if an officer books leave immediately following a rostered night shift, the Resource Department will adjust the duties so that it becomes a Late Turn or duty finishing at 2300 hours. However, if you find yourself working past 07.00hrs. into a booked annual leave day, the section on Working on Annual Leave should be followed.

There is no first hour rule as there is with working into a rest day. The moment you pass 07.00hrs, the appropriate compensation applies.

Where there is uncertainty, and no clear answer, is what happens if the annual leave day is not part of a run of three days off? If you have booked a single day, the compensation described above does not apply. It is not a rest day, so that compensation does not apply either. There is no minimum four hours. We believe that you book overtime at time and one third, with no disregard of the first half hour, for only as long as you are on duty.

In the case of a member of a police force of a rank not higher than that of chief superintendent, the chief officer of police may, in his discretion and subject to the exigencies of duty –

a) notwithstanding anything in paragraphs (1) and (2),where he is satisfied that, in any leave year, the member has not taken the full period of annual leave specified in those paragraphs, grant the member, during the following leave year, additional days of annual leave not exceeding the number of days not taken, so however that he shall not exercise his discretion so as to grant more than 5 additional days of annual leave to a member unless he is satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances and that it is in the interests of efficiency to do so;

b) grant the member not more than 5 additional days of annual leave, to be taken in the last month of the leave year, subject to a corresponding reduction being effected in the member’s period of annual leave under paragraph (1) for the following year.

If an officer (including part time officers) has been unable to take all of his/her leave allocation in the year to end 31st December, s/he may apply to carry forward up to five days (40 hours). In practice, this is automatic. However, should the number of unused days be more than five the officer will need to account for why they have not been taken and, probably, specify when s/he wants to take them within the first few months of the next year.

If you find yourself short of leave, you can apply to bring forward up to five days from the next annual leave year. However, you can only bring them forward into January. There will have to be good reasons.

To understand the compensation arrangements for being required to work on an annual leave day, it is important to understand that annual leave is a precious thing in the context of policing. Recalling an officer to duty from a period of annual leave is a serious thing and it should never be done lightly.

However, “leave” is a day upon which an officer is paid, but given ‘leave’ not to come to work.

The following scale of compensation applies where an officer is recalled to duty from a period of absence from duty of three or more days (of which at least one day is annual leave):

If the period of absence includes rostered rest days, days in lieu of overtime, or public holidays, compensation for working on those days (or time off in lieu) would be according to the relevant regulation.

This means that you have to be away for at least three days, but only one of those days has to be annual leave. As an example, if you book one or two annual leave days as an ‘island’ within a period of working days, and you are required to work on one of them, the only compensation you receive is a plain day of annual leave back. If you have a weekend of two rest days, and you tack an annual leave day on, you now have the minimum of three days. If you are recalled for the annual leave day, you are compensated as in the table. If you have to work on the rest days, you are compensated at the appropriate rate for a cancelled rest day.

If you claim double time payment in the scenario above this will be a day’s pay which is 8 hours or whatever your shift would have been, if you work a VSA. Additional hours worked beyond that would be at time and a third

This also applies if you book annual leave for dates in the future, and then something occurs that requires you to work, you are compensated at the rates in the table.

Please see the attached PDF at the top of this page for the relevant PNB circular.

If you have booked for example a single day’s Annual Leave and therfore it is not a period of absence as above and you are recalled we believe that you get your AL day back and work as normal the underlying shift.