Federation to meet MPs about police pay award

ESSEX Police Federation will meet the force’s local MPs to discuss the police service pay rise.

Officers were given a 1% pay rise and a 1% bonus for this year only, in a move the Government said broke the public sector pay rise. However, the bonus is only applicable this year and is non-pensionable.

Chairman Steve Taylor said: “We’ve engaged with all 18 of our MPs in Essex, and asked to go and meet them on a one-to-one basis, to express the concerns that our members have on pay directly to those local decision-makers and then with the MPs.

“We’ve had four positive replies to that already. Our plan is to travel up to the party conferences and meet them. Already we’ve got four MPs that are going to see us there, and a couple of others that aren’t going to attend but want to have a conversations with us regardless.

“The next step after that, we think, should concentrate on some of the other players involved in police pay. So the Police and Crime Commissioner is current and foremost amongst those, and of course the Chief Constable.

“It’s important that the Chief’s aware of the rank-and-file feeling on this pay award. So the next step would be our expressing the concerns that we have to those people as well.

“What more can we do than lobby all of our decision makers, locally and nationally, so that no one is under any illusions as to just how unhappy we are at the way we’ve been treated when it comes to our pay and conditions?”