POLICE officers across Merseyside were paid bonuses totalling £4.5m last year for “just doing their job”.
Scores of rank-and-file staff were awarded the controversial payments – one of which officers nicknamed “grab-a-grand”.
Merseyside Police must make budget savings of £66m by 2015, with no area of the authority set to be left untouched.
Critics last night called for the bonuses to be axed with cuts threatening the policing frontline.
Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation, said the bonuses were “being given for the job we should be doing anyway.”
Southport MP John Pugh said: “The whole bonus culture has no place in public service.”
Merseyside Police, which employs 4,560 officers, paid out a total of £4.45m to thousands of officers in 2009/10, figures obtained through the Freedom of Information Act revealed.
Special Priority Payments, totalling £2.5m in 2009, the last year available, were handed out to 1,684 officers who claimed they carried out extra responsibilities or whose posts were difficult to recruit for.
Just under £2m was handed out in “competency” payments to 1,933 officers demonstrating “high professional competence” and “commitment to the job” in 2009/10.
A police spokesman said: “Bonus payments or allowances of this type are paid out under Home Office schemes with which we are required to comply.”
