Santoña approves the structural hours regulation for the Local Police

The Plenary of the Santoña City Council, in its extraordinary session on August 13, 2026, agreed to definitively approve the Structural Hours Regulations for the Local Police and order its publication in the Official Gazette of Cantabria (BOC no. 160, of August 20, 2026, reference CVE-2026-6604, file 2025/1956). The regulation comes into force 15 business days after its publication.

A workforce reduced by half

The statement of reasons for the regulation notes that the police force has suffered a significant reduction in personnel in recent months due to several officers leaving for other destinations and long-term sick leave. In the Personnel Staffing Plan for the 2025 fiscal year, initially approved by the Plenary on June 24, 2025, seven officer positions were declared vacant, to which three more positions are added as they become free due to the appointment of three other officers as officials.

The result is that the municipality has only eight active officers to cover ordinary and extraordinary security and public order services, which necessitates regulating the effort of current personnel to maintain essential service levels.

A voluntary hours pool

The regulation creates an annual pool of hours to which officers may voluntarily join, with two dedication modalities:

• Dedication A: 96 annual hours outside the ordinary workday.
• Dedication B: 136 annual hours outside the ordinary workday.

Joining is voluntary and must be expressed in writing before December 31 of each year. Once confirmed, the requested hours must be completed mandatorily, without exception for personal circumstances, and failure to comply constitutes grounds for disciplinary liability and automatic exclusion from the modality, with the loss of the linked remuneration.

Covered services and remuneration

Structural hours cover extraordinary services during summer, Holy Week, weekends, and eves of holidays, as well as cultural, social, festive, sporting, or musical activities and needs derived from Christmas festivities. Temporary disabilities, vacations, permits, and licenses are excluded, as these are considered overtime according to the collective agreement.

The dedication is quantified at the price of the structural overtime hour (2.3 times the ordinary hour) fixed in the collective agreement, is integrated into the specific supplement, and is received in 14 monthly payments. The supplement is accrued by the extension of the workday: 1.84 hours of weekly excess in Dedication A and 2.61 hours in Dedication B. For 2026, since the regulation was approved late in the year, the hours are adapted proportionally to the remaining months and must be completed before January 1, 2027.

Relevance for the municipality

The regulation, signed by Mayor Jesús Gullart Fernández on August 14, 2026, seeks to guarantee the coverage of essential security services in a municipality whose operational capacity has been reduced by half. The regulation must be updated once the vacant Sub-inspector position is filled, following the completion of the selection process, and an administrative appeal may be filed against the agreement before the Administrative Chamber of the High Court of Justice of Cantabria within two months.

Source: Official Gazette of Cantabria, no. 160, August 20, 2026, pp. 38826-38829 (official reference: CVE-2026-6604, file 2025/1956).