ESSEX officers will gratefully receive a 2.5% boost to their pay packets, even though it\u2019s half what police leaders wanted to see.<\/p>\n
The Government said the uplift in salaries would take effect from September \u2013 a timely boost for some officers who have been struggling with their finances during the virus.<\/p>\n
Essex Police Federation Chair Laura Heggie said her members understood the tight economic environment due to COVID-19 and would be grateful for the increase, even though they deserve more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know what a massive effect COVID-19 has had on the economy as a whole, so we are grateful for the 2.5%. It\u2019s not the 5% that we asked for, or that we deserve, but we\u2019re not going to turn it down,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been hit with pay cuts every year. Although you may look at it and say it\u2019s 2.5% we should be jumping for joy; we\u2019ve lost 18% over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we\u2019re a long way off from that. Yes, we\u2019ve got 2.5% this year, but we\u2019ll still be pushing for 5% next year, so I\u2019d like to hope that we still get another pay rise next year too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The extra pay will be beneficial for some officers who Laura knows have been struggling to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur officers deserve it just as much as everybody else, and we have got officers that are struggling,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know some of its COVID-19 related, but in the last month, I\u2019ve seen more requests come through our Benevolent Fund for officers that are struggling financially with their mortgages, even with taking mortgage breaks around just day to day living.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat can\u2019t be acceptable, and it can\u2019t continue. And that\u2019s only going to get worse. People are just going to be getting into more and more debt. It has to end at some point. The only way that can be is for us to continue still to get the pay rises we deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ESSEX officers will gratefully receive a 2.5% boost to their pay packets, even though it\u2019s half what police leaders wanted to see. The Government said the uplift in salaries would\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138296"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138296"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139437,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138296\/revisions\/139437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/75539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}