Press Release
Police officers starting salary slashed and possibility of redundancy still hangs in the air
6 December 2012
Police officers beginning their service will see their pay cut while a decision on compulsory severance – effectively redundancy – being introduced for police officers has been put back.
The Police Arbitration Tribunal made the announcement today along with a number of decisions on key issues of disagreement between the Official Side, which includes representation from the Home Office and ACPO, and the Staff Side, which includes representation from the Police Federation, on the Police Negotiating Board (PNB).
While a decision on compulsory severance is delayed to July 2013, some constables starting in service will see their pay packets cut from around £23,259 to around £19,000 - a reduction of around £4,000.
Speaking to Police magazine, Paul McKeever, chair of the Police Federation, reacted to the announcement, saying: ‘It’s a disappointing starting salary for a constable - it’s lower than it is now. I cannot understand how it will attract a higher level of candidates if that is the ambition of the Official Side.
“We recognise the findings of the PAT and we welcome the fact the issue of compulsory severance has been deferred to allow common sense discussions to take place. Compulsory severance would have a detrimental impact on the service of this country and is something we will fight on.”
The decision comes against a back drop of 20 per cent cuts to policing budgets, a reduction in police and police staff numbers, privatisation, a raft of reforms and changes to pay and conditions.
Among some of the key issues announced today were; on-call allowance was accepted at £15 a session and without the need for 12 ‘qualifying sessions’ (essentially working for free for those sessions before payment is made) but competency-related threshold payments will be phased out between 2013 and 2016, meaning a reduction of around £1,200 in the pay packets of officers who qualified.
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