Annual leave requests too time consuming

Officers in some divisions of Greater Manchester Police have been taking more than an hour just to request time off from work, the force has admitted.

A GMP spokeswoman said that an investigation into its annual leave application process found that 'on some divisions, the whole procedure from start to finish was taking around 80 minutes as a number of copies of the leave form needed to be printed, signed and filed away'.

Chris Burrows, chairman of the force's federation, said officers are still spending too long filling in forms.

He said: 'Some divisions and departments seek to interpret force policy in their own way and add extra levels of bureaucracy that are unnecessary.

'We have been working with the force, which now recognises that and is actually working to streamline the processes.'

The process has now been scrapped and replaced by a system that takes just one and a half minutes to complete, the spokeswoman said.