Garden leave cops rake in £375,000 in salaries

More than a dozen police officers suspected of misconduct are sitting at home on full pay costing the taxpayer at least £375,000 a year.

A Sunday Post probe has revealed 13 cops at Police Scotland are suspended over allegations of criminal activity, including assault. One senior officer has racked up £82,000 in wages since being put on gardening leave more than a year ago. Others, all of whom are constables, have been on full wages for more than two years.

It comes after top brass promised a crackdown on suspensions and how long internal probes take.

Last night, former top cop and Labour justice spokesman Graeme Pearson said: “There are serious shortcomings with disciplinary procedures. The public would expect suspended officers to have the matter cleared up quickly.”

He added: “Justice delayed is justice denied.”

When the new national force was formed in April 2013, deputy chief Neil Richardson ordered staff to slash the bill for suspended officers. But our investigation discovered it has nearly doubled in some areas.

In 2012/13, before the forces merged, Strathclyde chiefs paid out £113,000 to suspended officers. But in 2013/14 the first year of Police Scotland pay-outs in the region soared to nearly £203,000.

Other areas also faced huge gardening leave bills.

Almost £90,000 was paid out in the Highlands last year while in Tayside the bill was £36,700. Two officers in Fife and Dumfries each received £22,500 respectively. The overall total could be higher as some areas could not break down their costs by financial year.

Of the 13 officers currently suspended, two work in Aberdeen, one in Dumfries, three in Edinburgh and one in Tayside. Five are based in Glasgow and one in the Highlands.

In Tayside one constable facing a host of criminal charges was suspended in 2009 for two years on full pay. But the officer resigned in 2011 before the internal probe was completed keeping his lucrative pension.

In the Highlands, a PC spent 909 days suspended before being asked to resign last January after being found guilty of a criminal offence. He too kept hold of any pension.

As well as full salaries some officers have had their housing allowance paid while an internal probe was carried out.

Tory chief whip John Lamont said: “Clearly in an organisation the size of Police Scotland there are going to be examples such as these. But it’s crucial such payments are limited to as brief a time as possible. We simply can’t afford to be paying senior police staff to sit in their garden.

“The organisation is not performing well financially, and this is probably one of the reasons for that.”

A spokesman for Police Scotland said: “We are continuing to reduce the costs associated to the force for misconduct cases as per DCC Richardson’s comments.”