“We will still press for the South East Allowance”

ESSEX Police Federation will continue to press the force to give its officers the South East Allowance, Chairman Steve Taylor has said.

The allowance is currently £2,000 and the Home Office has given permission for it to be raised to £3,000, although not provided any extra funding for the force to pay for it.

However, Steve said that did not mean the Federation would “take our foot off the pedal” in asking for officers to have it.

He explained: “The mistake is that it’s to compensate us for cost of living in the South, and that’s not really a true representation of what it’s for.

“The difficulty around the South East allowance is that it’s not like London weighting, because a lot of people think that it’s to compensate us for the cost of living in the South.

“It only compensates for the cost of living in the South if we can’t recruit people to Essex. So if we’re losing too many people and we can’t recruit people to replace them, then that’s what the South East allowance is designed to combat.

“And of course, whilst we are losing people, we are falling over ourselves with people looking to join the organisation. So the pressure there isn’t really going to be relieved by paying those of us who are already here a little bit more money.

“So there’s too much wiggle room there for the force to get away without paying it, which is disappointing but we continue to ask.

“But it does speak directly to fairness, it does speak directly to being fairly compensated for a hard day’s work, and it is within the gift of the organisation. So we can use the fact the Pay and Morale survey, to ask the question again of the organisation, that it’s within the gift, that we’d like to see this payment made.

“Just because we have a pretty strong sense of what the answer to the question is going to be, doesn’t mean we can let the organisation off the hook by not asking them the awkward question and making them tell us that it’s a no.”

“It’s important that it’s on the Chief’s radar from our point of view, and then as funds are available, whenever spending is going on, we have to put the marker down that ‘We’d like you to consider paying us’.”