Thousands Of Rest Days Owed To Cleveland Officers

15 May 2026

“Police officers are always putting their health on the line to protect the public”, the Chair of Cleveland Police Federation said, as it emerged that over 820,000 rest days are owed to officers in the UK.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request found that Constables, Sergeants, Inspectors and Chief Inspectors were owed 826,679 rest days – the equivalent of 2,264 years – as of 1 March 2026. The true figure is likely to be even higher, as three forces were unable to provide data.

The Metropolitan Police owed the highest number of rest days to its officers: 215,075 days (the equivalent of 589 years). With around 33,000 officers in the Met, this averages out at 6.5 days owed to each officer.

Cleveland Police did not have such a high ratio, with 6,583 rest days owed – the equivalent of four days per officer – but Federation Chair Lauren Somerville said her colleagues were often working from home in their spare time to deal with backlogs.

Lauren said: “These figures show just how much pressure officers are facing. The scale of demand on policing is rising to often unmanageable levels. Unlike employees, officers don’t have their rest days protected. They can be called in at a moment’s notice, and often are. Officers are more often than not kept on duty once their shift finishes, a shift that will have been non-stop, almost certainly dealing with trauma and often without a meal break.

“These worrying stats are not surprising to me. What they do tell me is that officers are as always putting their health on the line to protect the public. There is nothing that an officer is going through in their personal lives that the public’s needs won’t trump.

"Due to the nature of our job, there is always someone worse off, or someone who needs us more, or a problem that is just so significant or serious it can't wait.

“What I see in this data is sacrifice – that will continue, but it should be recognised. In Cleveland, there are around four rest days owed per officer, which is significantly better than some forces. It’s a recognition that, although Cleveland has the highest overall crime rate per 1,000 people, we are managing better than can be expected on paper.

“But I know that my colleagues are the most hard-working police officers and are, all too often, completing work at home in their own time. The demand is too high and the funding is too low, and we feel this the most in Cleveland.

“Highlighting issues like rest days owed is just one way of showing how difficult policing is, especially policing in one of the hardest areas in the country, with some of the smallest officer numbers in the country.”