Royal police officer pay tops £100,000

ALMOST 50 police officers guarding the Queen and other members of the Royal family took home £100,000-plus in pay in one year after bringing a claim against Scotland Yard.

The officers, who are all members of the Royalty and Specialist Protection unit, were given substantial one-off payments after winning a dispute over their “special escort” allowance.

The latest Metropolitan Police accounts show that 47 officers broke through the £100,000 barrier in 201617 as a result. The officers are tasked with guarding senior members of the Royal family as well as the Prime Minister and other politicians.

The huge sums being paid out are deeply embarrassing for Scotland Yard at a time when bosses have complained about budget cuts and with violent crime rising in the capital. London has recorded its highest number of killings in a decade.

The 47 officers will have been paid at least £5million in total although the Metropolitan Police has declined to disclose the total sums paid in extra allowances.

They make up more than half the total of 82 Met Police officers paid more than £100,000 in 2016-17, according to the latest accounts. The numbers of officers paid £100,000 in 2017-18 – the following year – fell by half once the one-off payment was removed.

The Met is looking to reduce its annual £1.6billion wage bill and has put in place “an early departure scheme” to achieve savings.

However, the accounts show that officers in the elite royal protection team complained about a miscalculation of allowances, stretching back six years.

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that a group of officers in the royal protection squad brought a legal claim against the Met Police after a special “escort allowance” was scrapped in 2012 following a review of police pay and conditions which ended a series of perks and bonus payments including the special escort allowance.

Officers sued the police for breach of contract with the claim settled on the steps of the High Court, according to a well placed source.

The Met then backdated their pay – it is thought interest was added – allowing dozens of officers to cash in.

The most recent accounts, signed off in the summer, state: “Of the 82 cases of salaries exceeding £100k in 2016-17, 47 officers exceeded the £100k barrier in that year simply owing to a one-off back payment.

“These cases are police officers working royalty and specialist protection roles. Following a formal claim from those officers, the MPS has now accepted that the special escort allowance for royal protection officers had been incorrectly interpreted in previous years, and therefore the officers had been underpaid.

“During 2016-17 the MPS paid these officers the monies due to them, covering a back-pay period of over six years.”