KSO & Ors v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis & Ors

This judgment resolves multiple questions about police pay and leave entitlements under the Police Regulations 2003 and the Secretary of State's Determinations, in particular the operation of Annex G (overtime/recalls), Annex H (rest days, public holidays and free days), Annex O (annual leave) and Annex U (on-call allowance). The court construed the relevant Determinations and applied them to factual positions of CHIS handlers and controllers.

• Four-hour minimum: the deeming rule (Annex G para (1)(h)(iii) and para (3)(f), and Annex H para (3)(h)) applies to each individual recall lasting less than four hours, including where multiple short recalls occur within four hours, subject to avoiding double recovery.
• 15-minute increments: the 15-minute completed-period rule for calculating allowance applies after the length of the period of overtime/ duty has been computed (i.e. the four-hour deeming is applied in computing the period and then pay is calculated in completed 15 minute units).
• Inspectors (Annex H para (1)(g)): that provision does not create an entitlement to a day in lieu where the inspector undertakes out-of-hours work arising from a recall/requirement that arises during the day itself; the provision addresses days cancelled in advance and not the small interruptions that occur on the day.
• Additional leave and remedies: where additional leave (including under Annex O para (5)) is due and is not granted within a reasonable time, the chief officer is in breach of statutory duty and the officer has an actionable claim for damages; conversion to pay or time off and timing of election under Annex O were addressed.
• On-call allowance: an officer is "on call" for Annex U para (13) when required to be available to perform duties outside rostered tours; whether an officer is so required is to be judged by the substance of the role (not merely a rota label).
• Evidential conclusions: the court accepted the claimants' reasonable processing-time estimates for out-of-hours contacts (KSO and KWS) except that an uplift claimed by KWS for a subset of "long calls" was not supported; clustering of proximate contacts as a single recall is an appropriate evidential method; telephone and force records are often incomplete and modest uplifts to documented figures will often be necessary.

This is a first-instance judgment in consolidated lead claims brought by CHIS handlers and a controller (KSO, KWS, KBS) against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner about unpaid allowances and lost additional leave under the Police Regulations 2003 and the Secretary of State's Determinations. The lead claims were case-managed to resolve principal legal issues affecting many similar claims. Proceedings were anonymised; parts of the evidence were heard in private because of operational sensitivity. The trial was heard over multiple sessions in 2022.

Nature of claims and remedies sought: claimants sought statutory debts for unpaid allowances (overtime, rest-day/public-holiday/free-day allowances, on-call allowance, unsocial hours allowance where relevant) and, in respect of additional leave not granted, damages for breach of statutory duty and/or injunctive/declaratory relief or quantum meruit in the alternative.

Main issues framed: the court listed numerous issues but focussed on construction and application of Annex G (overtime and the four-hour minimum and completed 15-minute units), Annex H (rest days/public holidays/free days and four-hour minimum; part-time free-day rules; inspectors' rights under para (1)(g)), Annex O (annual leave and para (5) rights when recalled from a period of absence), Annex U (on-call allowance), timing and effect of elections for pay/time-off in lieu, whether a failure to grant additional leave gives rise to damages for breach of statutory duty, and evidential rules for proving number and length of recalls.

Court's reasoning and conclusions (concise):

• The court applied ordinary principles of statutory interpretation to the Determinations (with limited reference to Winsor reports and PNB/PAT material for context) and treated Annex provisions as normative rules to be read in context of PR 2003. The reasoning drew on prior authorities including Allard and Middup where relevant for the meaning of recalls.
• On Annex G and Annex H the language shows that the four-hour deeming applies to each recall/period and is part of the computation of the period; once computed the allowance is calculated in completed 15 minute units. The court rejected an interpretation that a recall must meet a 15-minute threshold before the deeming applies; instead the deeming is applied when calculating the period and then pay is computed by reference to completed 15-minute parcels.
• For inspectors Annex H para (1)(g) was construed against an interpretation that any interruption on a rest day/public holiday gives a whole day in lieu; the historical context (Sheehy changes and PNB material) and the contrast with the carefully calibrated constable/sergeant scheme led the court to the defendant's construction.
• Annex O para (5) compensatory rules apply where an officer is recalled to duty on a qualifying day of annual leave in a qualifying period of absence; it is not necessary that the recall be for a whole working day.
• Failure to grant additional leave within a reasonable time gives rise to a private actionable claim for breach of statutory duty (6-year limitation applies) because the statutory scheme provides no other effective remedy for officers seeking the grant of the additional days.
• On-call allowance (Annex U para (13)) was construed in ordinary language terms: an officer is on-call when required to be available to perform their duties outside rostered tours; whether that requirement exists is substantive (role-based) not merely rota-based. The Winsor/Joint Agreement operational criteria are conditions a force may impose, not definitional additions to the Determinations.
• On evidence the court (i) accepted reasonable processing-time estimates given by KSO and KWS (subject to rejecting an uplift for frequent very long follow-ups by KWS), (ii) accepted that diaries and other contemporaneous records may fill gaps where official systems are incomplete and permitted clustering of proximate contacts as an evidential tool, and (iii) found the telephone data for KBS incomplete and her personal estimates unreliable; the court directed parties to reformulate quantification using the court's guidance (telephone data plus force notes as a baseline with modest uplifts for known gaps).

The judgment resolves the listed issues of law and gives guidance on evidential quantification so that many follow-on claims can be settled or quantified consistently.

This is a first-instance determination of multiple legal and evidential issues. The court disposed of the claims by answering the questions of statutory construction and evidential approach set out in the lead action. Key holdings: (i) the four-hour deeming in Annex G and Annex H applies to each qualifying recall of less than four hours (subject to no double recovery); (ii) the allowance is calculated in completed 15-minute units after the period has been computed; (iii) Annex H para (1)(g) does not entitle inspectors to a day in lieu for interruptions arising on the day itself; (iv) failure to grant additional leave within a reasonable time gives rise to an actionable claim for damages for breach of statutory duty; (v) Annex O para (5) applies to recalls on qualifying days even where the recall is not a full working day; (vi) an officer is "on call" under Annex U para (13) when required by the substance of the role to be available outside rostered tours; and (vii) the court accepted specified evidential methods (reasonable processing-time estimates, clustering, modest uplifts to incomplete force records) while rejecting particular uplift claims and some uncorroborated estimates. The court gave reasons based on statutory construction, context and evidential assessment of the material before it.