To ask the Chief Constable (I) for his assessment of the implementation of short to medium term actions in the PSNI Overtime Strategy and the Communication Plan (initiated by then ACC Hamilton and Corporate Communications) reported to the Committee in February 2020; (ii) who is the senior officer responsible for the strategy; and (iii) by how much PSNI are reducing overtime and specifically how you are target setting to ensure that this reduction is met.
Overtime is widely used given the unique policing challenges coupled with rising demand as outlined in the Strategic Outline Case for 7500 officers.
The PSNI Overtime Strategy was introduced in 1 May 2019.
My initial assessment is that the strategy has added significant scrutiny and discipline on overtime expenditure within the organisation and at the end of January 2020 the expenditure was showing consistent control within the budget limits allocated.
I know ACC District Policing has briefed the Resourcing Committee on some of the detail, but overall to the end of January the expenditure on police overtime was circa £1.2M under consolidated budgets. My assessment is that, to date, the initial approach and the initial communications plan have led to an improvement. . An appropriate target will be agreed once a clear understanding of our budget for the incoming financial year is known.
Moving forward the responsibility for oversight of the strategy will sit with the Deputy Chief Constable and this will include the completion and implementation of the wider Communications Strategy which has been delayed due to some staffing changes within our Corporate Communications Department. This will allow us to build on our initial progress, further embed the approach and deliver against the benefits in both financial and staff welfare terms.