PC Plod picks up a packet

Back in May, Sir Paul Stephenson, Britain’s most senior police officer, insisted that the police should forgo bonuses to prove that their sole motivation was a sense of public duty. Such grandiosity looks absurd when a freedom of information request reveals that the police were awarded more than £150million pounds in bonuses last year. The Telegraph has the excruciating details.

‘Bonus payments across all ranks have risen six per cent over the past three years. The extra payments were introduced in 2002 by David Blunkett, the home secretary at the time, to offer incentives for performance. Five types of bonus are available, including extra payments for officers who show “professional competence” or carry out “demanding work”. But the awards have been called anathema to policing by one senior officer and “a bonus for doing your duty” by the leader of the country’s rank-and-file officers. They have also been blamed for encouraging senior officers to concentrate on the pursuit of targets.