Know your regs: working into annual leave

27 October 2020

Our Frequently Asked Questions section gives members the chance to find the answers to the questions that are regularly put to Federation officials, workplace representatives and staff.

We highlight some of these questions in the Federation magazine, ezine and as individual news items.

This time we focus on working into annual leave.

Q. I was kept on duty and worked into a day that was scheduled for annual leave what can I claim?
A. Working into annual leave is not contained in either Regulation 25 (over-time) or Regulation 26 (PHL/rest day) of Police Regulations and Determinations, so it is not classified as over-time.

Regulation 33 (Annex OO) does state that it is compensation for being recalled to duty. It is also applicable for officers required to work on an annual leave day as well, therefore covering the retained on duty scenario. Once the recall from annual leave has been compensated, the day reverts to whatever the rostered duty was (eg 07:00 - 16:00, 10:00 - 18:00, rest day) that was booked off.

At this point, Regulations 25 and 26 come into play and any over-time that would normally be payable is payable.

So, for example, an officer is retained on duty until 08:00 hours off nights having booked one day’s annual leave for the following night’s tour of duty, which is then attached to two or more rest days, TOIL, PHL or free days.

In this case, the officer would receive compensation of a day back plus a day’s pay at double time (nine hours because it was a nine-hour shift the officer had booked off).

Now it gets confusing, because the officer had the annual leave day cancelled by working into it, the officer has to work the nine hours but because they only worked one hour they owe the Force eight hours . This could be sorted by just returning the one hour the officer had worked back onto their annual leave.

Find out the answers to more Frequently Asked Questions

Regulations: Quick Reference Guide