Scheduled police officer pay rise labelled “insulting”

ONE per cent pay rises scheduled for police officers for the next two years are “insulting”, Essex Police Federation has said.

The current two-year police officer pay freeze is expected to come to an end on 31 August this year – but the coalition government has previously said that pay increases for the next two years will be capped at one per cent.

This expected rise will be less than half of that seen for officers in the three years preceding the pay freeze.

A deal was struck in 2008 that saw an increase in officers’ pay of 2.65 per cent for 2008/09, 2.6 per cent for 2009/10 and 2.55 per cent for 2010/11.

The matter of a one per cent rise was raised in a letter from the Staff Side of the Police Negotiating Board (PNB) to Police Minister Damian Green at the end of February.

Ian Rennie, Staff Side Secretary and General Secretary of the Police Federation of England and Wales, wrote: “Although the Official Side [of the PNB] has yet to make a proposal on this year’s pay rise for police officers, we understand the government intends to introduce an average of up to one per cent pay rise for each of the two years following the end of the pay freeze.”

Despite the potential pay rise, Mr Rennie pointed out that with the progression [increment] freeze, inflation at 2.7 per cent and the removal of competence related threshold payments (CRTPs), officers’ take-home pay is still being reduced. On top of that, any increase in pension contributions would effectively be an “additional pay cut”, he said.

Mark Smith, chairman of Essex Police Federation, labelled a 1% rise as “insulting” and added that officers would be “taking a drop in salary”.

Frontline officers said that one per cent pay rises “just wouldn’t cut it” with the increasing costs of living and other pay reforms facing the police service.

While officers will obviously accept the increase, there “will still be money missing from our pockets”, added a PC from Essex Police.

“Our pay is just being whittled away and I find it quite sickening to be honest,” he said.

“It makes me feel particularly fed up and disillusioned when you hear that MPs are not having their pension contributions increased. It is just not right.”

The final agreed increase will be introduced on September 1 this year.