NPCC rest day proposals criticised
13 March 2026
Police chiefs are risking intensifying the recruitment and retention crisis by putting forward proposals that would weaken the protections around officers’ rest days, says West Midlands Police Federation chair Jess Davies.
Officers are entitled to a minimum four hours’ compensation at time and a half when they have to work on a cancelled rest day or bank holiday in recognition of the disruption to protected rest and family commitments.
But the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), in its annual submission to the Police Remuneration Review Body, is proposing that this is reduced to time and a third, calculated 15-minutes at a time for the exact period worked. It also wants to tighten the rules around the re-rostering of cancelled rest days.
“I am appalled at these proposals from the NPCC,” says Jess, “At a time when we are seeing police officers leaving the service in their droves, it is difficult to understand why chief officers cannot see that this is just going to make matters worse. We will have no officers left at this rate.
“The police service is under extreme strain and this feels like a real kick in the teeth for officers who are being stretched to their limits by the general demands of policing and the extra pressure put on them when they are required to police large scale protests.
“Officers should have a reasonable expectation that chief officers would not just support them, but that they would also not propose changes to the protections put in place to recognise the sacrifices they make to ensure that the public are kept safe.
“We cannot run a 21st century police force on a 20th century budget, and then try to resolve it with yet another proposal that will be to the detriment of officers who have absolutely no industrial rights.
“Police chiefs should be backing their officers by calling on the Government to commit to long-term, sustained investment in the police service not trying to put a further squeeze on the very people who day in, day out put themselves in the frontline of serving and protecting their communities.”
In September last year, after a summer during which 3,000 protests were policed across the UK, NPCC chair Gavin Stephens publicly acknowledged that cancelled leave and relentless protest demand have meant “we are asking too much of the people and the infrastructure that we have”.
He acknowledged that officers’ “precious time with their own loved ones” had been significantly disrupted through cancelled rest days and redeployments and described the current model of policing as “unsustainable”.
The national Federation says with demand overwhelming most forces, policing is only viable because it places excessive burdens such as cancelled rest days on officers as a norm rather than exception. It warns public order policing in particular depends on such surge capacity.
In its own report to PRRB, the Police Federation of England and Wales has argued that police officers should receive a minimum pay rise of seven per cent for the next three years.
The NPCC has called for officers to be given a fully funded 3.5 per cent pay rise from 1 September 2026. It said if the increase was not fully funded, then it should be 2.5 per cent instead.
Federation calls for seven per cent pay uplift.
