Cambridgeshire Police Federation chair Liz Groom says the system for determining police pay must change after it was announced officer wages would increase by 4.75 per cent this year.
Liz gave a caveated welcome to the increase, which she described ‘as a step towards pay restoration’.
But she said the announcement, coming on the same day junior doctors were awarded a 22 per cent pay rise, highlighted the need for a new, independent police pay mechanism.
“An increase of 4.75 per cent is to be welcomed and, added to last year’s seven per cent rise, is a step towards pay restoration,” Liz said.
“But there’s still a long way to go until we have parity with where police pay was before the austerity years and we will continue to campaign for fairer funding.
“It won’t be lost on many people that junior doctors have been told their pay will increase by 22 per cent over the next two years.
“Good luck to them, but you can’t help but think things would be different for police officers if we had industrial rights, like the junior doctors, and we had a fair and independent pay review system.”
Liz said she hoped the police pay rise would go some way towards easing the retention crisis in policing.
She said: “Policing is a unique and demanding role, with restrictions placed on officers’ work and personal lives.
“They face traumatic incidents on a daily basis and put themselves in harm’s way to protect others, and I hope this pay award will helps us to hold on to more of our officers and recruit the best candidates in the future.”
Following a recent poll, the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) will launch a campaign for a new mechanism for determining officer pay awards which includes collective bargaining and access to binding arbitration in recognition of the unique restrictions placed on police officers who, for example, cannot join a trade union or go on strike.
Liz said: “It feels unfair that other public services have means of demanding better pay while the police are negotiating with both hands tied behind their backs.
“Without a new system in place, we are always at the mercy of the Government of the day.”
Other announcements include:
- The on-call allowance will be increased from £20 to £25
- The dog handlers’ allowance should be uprated by 4.75 per cent and the additional rate for officers with more than one dog be raised from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of the rate for the first dog
- The PRRB recommended that the chief officer of police in each force should be given the discretion to set the starting salary for new constables at either pay point 1 or pay point 2 on the constables’ pay scale. This recommendation has been accepted, but implementation will be subject to detailed proposals from the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) on the circumstances in which this discretion should be used, along with transition arrangements for those constables on pay point 1, to inform amendments to the Police Regulations 2003
- The annual leave entitlements for officers in the federated ranks and recommended the time it takes to reach the maximum entitlement of 30 days should be reduced from 20 to 10 years, with effect from 1 April 2025 and phased in over three years. This recommendation was accepted, subject to the submission of a satisfactory Equality Impact Assessment by the NPCC to the Home Office
- The annual leave entitlement for new entrants will be increased from 22 to 25 days, with implementation taking effect on 1 April 2025
- The Home Office will provide £175 million in additional funding in 2024-25 to forces to help with the cost of the pay increase.