POLICE officers in North Yorkshire raked in more than £4.35 million in overtime last year.

Government figures show officers in North Yorkshire averaged an overtime payout of £3,304 each on top of their normal salaries in 2006/2007.

Police in the county receive the third highest overtime payments in the North of England and the tenth highest across the 42 forces in England and Wales.

The payments - which have almost doubled in nine years - have provoked an angry response from campaigners, who claim officers are working longer hours because of an increase in paperwork.

The figures were given following a question in the House of Commons by Conservative MP David Ruffley, the Shadow Minister for Police Reform.

The report revealed the total overtime bill for North Yorkshire was £4,352,000 in 2006/2007, compared to £2,111,000 in 1997/1998.

In that year the county's officers received an overtime payments of £1,794 each on average.

Mr Ruffley said: "This overtime is being used to do ever more paperwork.

"Red tape on our police is increasing and it is wrong that police spend more time on paperwork than on patrol.

"The new figures show the true cost of police bureaucracy.

"Overtime payments to officers have nearly doubled under Labour."

But a Home Office spokesman said that the overtime bill represented only seven per cent of total pay costs.

He said: "We are always looking for ways to reduce bureaucracy."

Across the country, the overtime bill last year stood at £412m, according to a Home Office report.

In East Yorkshire, Humberside paid out £3,355 to each of its officers in 2006/2007 - a total of £7.46million - and in West Yorkshire officers earned £2,347 each in overtime - 13.24million in total.

The biggest overtime payouts in the UK were made in Northumbria, where officers were paid an average of £4,972 each. But officers in Northamptonshire did the worst - earning an average of just £209 each in overtime in the same year.