Some 3,750 officers and support staff in the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) have won a class action over how holiday pay should have been calculated.
They claimed holiday pay should be calculated on the basis of actual annual working days, rather than on the 365 days divisor which the force had been using.
A tribunal hearing initially went against the claim, but this was overturned on appeal.
The affected officers and staff now can expect to be paid monies owed from back to 1998, and the total bill is likely to top £40 million.
Lawyers for the Chief Constable had argued that payment was only due for three months prior to the case being brought, but this was dismissed by the appeal court judges, who accepted that the Chief Constable would be ‘unjustly enriched’ were this argument accepted.
There should be no time limit as to how far back in time owed money can be claimed for when it has been an unlawful decision that led to it being underpaid in the first place. Maybe ANY and ALL time restrictions in respect to such claims should be removed. It is such a shame that a police officer needs to go to Court to fight for what is his/her right IN LAW!
Again, Northern Ireland have led the way. As part of the United Kingdom they have been subjected to Home Office influences in a manner similar to injury pensions on mainland Britain. The common features throughout have been the imaginative and unlawful interpretation of regulations which were put in place to avoid the need for individuals to take civil actions. This success follows on from their having secured a less adversarial approach to those former officers now retired due to being injured on police duty.
The law is the law BUT if you are on holiday and not working then your hourly rate is just that your basic hourly rate? OK I am obviously old fashioned and well done lads and lasses for winning more money but as an ordinary working plod from the 60’s I can see where the Chief Constable was coming from. You are entitled to holidays and you are entitled for them to be paid but at enhanced rates when you did nothing, the world has gone mad.