Staffordshire Police has splashed thousands of pounds over the last five years on gift vouchers to reward staff who take “only” a handful of sick days.

Hundreds more employees have been rewarded with bonus annual leave holiday just for turning up to work.

An Express & Star investigation has revealed that over the last five years the force spent £40,190 on £10 gift vouchers to merit staff for their ‘good attendance’ when they fell below a sick day threshold.

The scheme has now been scrapped, but data released under Freedom of Information laws shows that in 2004-2005 a total of 839 police staff who called in sick for up to five days in a year were rewarded with a £10 voucher.

The force altered its policy from the 2005-2006 period but continued to reward staff who took up to three sickies in a year until this financial year.

An average of £8,000 per annum was being spent on the gift voucher rewards, in addition to the scores of officers being given an extra day’s annual leave just for not calling in sick.

A total of 2,378 police days have been sacrificed as a reward for staff with no sick days in the last five years, amounting to an average of 476 days every year.

The figures have been condemned by common sense tax campaigner Fiona McEvoy, West Midlands representative of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, who dubbed the force’s policy ‘utterly ridiculous’.

“It should be that police staff are expected to turn up each day and only take sick days when absolutely necessary” she said.

“If employees are taking too many days off without good reason they should be subject to disciplinary action, not lured into work by the promise of treats like small school children.

“The amount of money wasted on this is utterly ridiculous. Staff are already rewarded for going into work with something called a salary. It’s totally unacceptable that the public have been topping up their wages in return for them doing the bare minimum – showing up.”

Carol Evans, spokeswoman for Staffordshire Police, confirmed the Managing Attendance scheme has been discontinued for this financial year because of the economic climate and the fact that sickness figures were no longer falling as a result of the rewards.

She added: “The introduction of the policy as a whole has led to substantial reductions in sickness absence for both police officers and police staff over a number of years.”