POLICE forces are spending more on overtime payments for officers to cover staff shortages, according to new figures.

The overtime bill for 39 forces in England and Wales rose by £6m on last year and totalled more than £1b over the last three years, data obtained by the BBC under a Freedom of Information request showed.

In Wiltshire, the figure stood at £5.5m for the three years.

One officer, working for the Metropolitan Police, was paid £45,000 for overtime worked during 2014/15.

The overall cost of paying officers to work extra hours amounted to £313.2 million in 2014/15, up from £307.1 million the previous year.

A third of the total annual bill was accounted for by the Met, the BBC said.

The force said it used overtime only when “essential” and was often paid to officers in “very specialist roles”, which were performed by only a limited number of staff.

Elsewhere, one officer at West Midlands Police was paid £32,702 for working overtime in its call centre, which a spokesman for the force said had had a recruitment shortage.

Two forces, Bedfordshire and Cleveland, saw a 50 per cent rise in overtime costs year-on-year, while South Wales Police saw its bill rise from £5.2 million last year to £8.4 million this year.

Sergeants and constables can claim overtime if they remain on duty after their shift ends, are recalled within two hours of their last shift, or work extra hours at short notice.

Chief Constable Francis Habgood, from the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said: “With the current cuts regime, we are doing all we can to ensure that the police service offers the best value for taxpayers’ money and all forces have reduced overtime spend in recent years.”