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Prize draw money for police who come to work

05/09/2007

Manchester police officers who turn up for work every day over a nine-month period are being awarded cash prices, it has emerged.

At a south Manchester division, police who refrain from taking time off sick for most of the year are entitled to enter a draw, whereby officers are in with a chance of winning £500.

Chief Superintendent Alan Cooper said the prize draws, which amounted to £3,000 last year but is rising to £4,000 this year, was a way of rewarding those who come into work when staff levels are down.

"If you are ill, the thought of a couple of hundred pounds isn't going to make people come into work. [But] they might if it's just a sniffle," he said.

"We were eighth out of the 12 divisions within Greater Manchester Police in terms of sickness absence and now we are third."

According to the Home Office, over 1.4 million days were lost through police officer
sickness throughout the country at the start of the decade.