BBC interview highlights mounting rest days for Suffolk officers

18 May 2026

Suffolk Police Federation vice chair Matt Paisley has highlighted the mounting backlog of rest days owed to members in an interview with the BBC.

BBC Radio Suffolk heard that Suffolk Police officers are owed 7,756 rest days – the equivalent of 21 years.

Matt said: “We heavily rely upon the goodwill of police officers to pick up additional skill sets in order to maximise service delivery for the county.

“But those skill sets come at a cost, because many of them are voluntary. We expect police officers to pick up the skills, and then they give up their days off to come into work and deliver that skill set in order to keep the communities we police safe.”

Matt told listeners that major operations regularly require officers to work on scheduled days off.

One recent example involved policing demands surrounding Ipswich Town’’s final home fixture of the season against Queens Park Rangers, when they secured promotion to the Premier League.

Around 150 officers had rest days cancelled to support public safety operations.

Matt said: “Those 150 police officers were due to be on their days off.

Extra hours

“So, they come into work, the day is put back into a pot, but the availability for those officers to take that day back becomes the issue.

“They're clocking up extra hours. They're told they can take the time back, but when it comes to trying to take it, they can't because there's no one to cover behind them.”

Matt said the problem reflects a wider national challenge affecting forces across England and Wales.

The figures, which come from a Freedom of Information report released by Police Oracle, show that across England and Wales officers are collectively owed 817,884 rest days.

As part of its Copped Enough campaign, the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) recently launched its Hands off our rest days drive, which is in response to proposals from police chiefs that would weaken protections around police officers’ rest days.

Campaign

The campaign warns that policing is facing unprecedented pressure and that rest-day safeguards are vital to protecting officers’ wellbeing.

Matt said: “We all have a personal responsibility to make sure we're making those leave requests.

“Quite often police officers feel the nature of their role prohibits them from taking that day off, or they think I'll take that day off in future.

“But that day might not come and those numbers stack up.

“Police officers are exposed to trauma day in day out, and it's important that they maximise the time off to take a break from policing.”

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