Ministry of the Interior: No statistics on police overtime

Police officers in Brandenburg complain that their workload is too heavy. However, the Ministry of the Interior, as the employer, does not keep statistics on the overtime worked. According to the police union, this would be important.

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2023 December 4 . 5:54 AM

1 min read

A police emergency vehicle. Photo.aussiedlerbote.de

Domestic policy - Ministry of the Interior: No statistics on police overtime

Brandenburg's Ministry of the Interior has no overview of the overtime worked by the police in the state. "There is no central recording of time credits and ordered overtime, nor are separate statistics kept," said a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior when asked. The "logging of overtime is a practical control instrument for assessing the workload within the police force", criticized a spokesperson for the police union in Brandenburg.

In other federal states, police overtime can be determined by the respective Ministry of the Interior. In Saxony-Anhalt, for example, police officers worked more than 200,000 hours of overtime last year, according to the Ministry of the Interior there. In Hamburg, the figures are collected every quarter. The state police force in Brandenburg is subordinate to the state's Ministry of the Interior.

"We cannot understand why the ministry does not record overtime in the police in statistics," explained the police union spokesperson. The workload in the state police force is "very high".

"Officially ordered overtime" must be compensated by time off within six months, explained the spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior. In exceptional cases, overtime could also be compensated. "In recent years, compensation has only been paid in individual cases," said the spokesperson. "The costs cannot be specified in general terms, as they depend on the amount of overtime."