A query from Blenheim-based officer Robbie Malneek led to months of Police Association work to get Police to commit to auditing and correcting shift incentive payments for more than 800 constabulary staff with “uplifts”.

In early December 2024, Robbie noticed something wasn’t right with his pay, says senior employment adviser Rachel Lane. 

“His original email was basically, ‘Hey, I've been looking at my wages. I looked at the shift incentive. The calculation doesn't seem to have taken into consideration my permanent uplift. I've gone to HR in Police and received a weird response that just doesn't make sense’.”

Police reasoned that the issue was to do with “shift bands” – terminology that Rachel says doesn’t exist in the constabulary employment agreement. “Shift bands are not in their collective. Police employees, yes. Constabulary, no.”

The association’s position is clear: The clause reads very plainly that the shift incentive calculation (plus 15% per qualifying hour) is based on the total remuneration (TR) as printed in the collective in addition to any permanent uplifts that you are in receipt of. 

An example of an uplift is compensation for the additional demands, responsibilities and training required to be a member of the armed offenders squad or Police negotiation team. 

So if an officer works qualifying shift hours – any time between 6pm and 6am and also on weekends – the 15% shift incentive loading applies to their base rate plus their uplift for any and all eligible hours worked. 

However, Police had only been applying the shift incentive calculation to an officer’s base pay rate for any applicable hours. Uplifts were not factored in before the calculations were made.

After “much toing and froing over the past six months”, Police recently accepted the association’s view and will carry out an audit and apply the correct calculation to everyone, Rachel says. Payments will also be backdated to January 27, 2022.

While implementation will take Police about six to eight weeks once the audit is completed, she’s clear: “This is the association going into battle long and hard. It's not going to be a great deal of money, but it’s the member’s money at the end of the day.”