Police 16 hour shifts

WRITTEN QUESTIONS
9th Assembly



23/10/2002

32. Police 16 hour shifts

Mr Maley to MINISTER for Police, Fire and Emergency Services


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1. How many “back to back” 16 hour shifts were worked in the year 2001 by police officers?

2. How many times were more than 2 x 16 hour shifts per week worked by any individual officer for the year ended 20 November 2002?

3. How much has been paid ($) in total for ordinary hours for the entire Northern Territory Police Force for the year ended 20 November 2002?

How much has been paid ($) in total for overtime hours for the entire Northern Territory Police Force for the year ended 20 November 2002?

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Answered on 13/05/2004


1. A total of 2,299 “back to back” 16 hour shifts were worked by police officers in 2001.

1,952 of these shifts were worked in Darwin, Alice Springs and Katherine.
With the exception of special or urgent cases, police officers are not rostered to work a 16 hour “double” shift. Police officers are given the opportunity to volunteer for a “double” shift.
The most common reason for working a 16 hour “double” shift is to cover for another police officer who has booked off sick. 2. For the year ended 20 November 2002 there were 25 individual occasions where police officers worked more than 2 x 16 hours shifts in one week.

3. Total personnel costs for police officers for the year ended 30 November 2002 are $63,672,275.65.

4. Total overtime expenditure for the year ended 30 November 2002 was $4,111,286.59.

While the total expenditure figures are readily available through the usual Northern Territory Police accounting systems, there are no information systems in place to easily collate the data on “back to back” shifts. The figures provided in this brief were obtained by manually checking police attendance registers and day journals at all stations throughout the Territory. These figures will be reasonably accurate but the methodology used to collate this data is likely to have missed some work areas. Specialist units such as CIB, Drug Squad and the TRG were not included because shifts of this nature are rare within these units. However, it is not appropriate to use any further significant amounts of scarce operational police time and resources to attempt to gather any further information.
Last updated: 03 Aug 2016