THE precarious nature of police officers\u2019 finances is \u2018terrifying\u2019 says Essex Police Federation.<\/p>\n
Officers are using food banks just to get by while an interest rate of just 1% could see some having as little as \u00a375 to live on a month, figures have shown. Essex Police Federation Chairman Steve Taylor said he knew officers were also tied down with payday loans.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir financial vulnerability is terrifying,\u201d he said, \u201cand it\u2019s an unspoken issue. How many officers have payday loans?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know how damaging they can be to your financial health. We know officers need food banks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are symptoms of real precarious financial health and unfortunately when one\u2019s financial health is at risk, we\u2019re only human, temptation gets in the way, corruption can\u2019t be far behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not being melodramatic about it, it\u2019s a serious issue that we have to get to grips with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve\u2019s comments come after Thames Valley Chief Constable Francis Habgood acknowledged that officers need fair pay for what they do. The National Police Chiefs Council lead said; \u201c\u201cWe\u2019ve got to a point where actually the compounding effect of either zero or one – or recently a two per cent increase – means some of them [officers] are really challenged in terms of their ability to meet the basic costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve said the Federation welcomed individual comments on the issue but urged the NPCC to be \u2018less cautionary\u2019 about officer pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime and time again we see individual chiefs making useful comments but as an organisation the NPCC has been stunted or cautionary about the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the NPCC that make their own pay submissions to the Pay Review Body. They are not as high as the Federation\u2019s evidenced submissions, so while they\u2019re saying that on this occasion, they think there\u2019s a case for more pay, where was that case when pay submissions were being made?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy wasn\u2019t it as high as it could have been then? So, trying not to look a gift horse in the mouth but\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NPCC were prime movers for the move away from incremental pay, so in one sense while creating some of the angst, they\u2019re offering a solution to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell why don\u2019t you just not create the problem in the first place?\u201d Steve added.<\/p>\n
Steve\u2019s concern is that officers\u2019 reporting financial woes is just the tip of the iceberg. He says the issue needs to be discussed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way we can do that is by being open and transparent and honest with one another. Who amongst us would put their hand up and say, \u2018I use a food bank\u2019? There\u2019s a stigma attached to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy sense is that financial vulnerability is like an iceberg, we only see a little bit at the top and we\u2019re left to guess just how big the monster is under the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019d love to see is the South East allowance reconfigured to reflect the cost of living in the South East in particular.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no good simply gauging the South East allowance on recruitment and retention because invariably one or either of those won\u2019t be a problem, and unless both are an issue our ability to lobby for an increase in the South East allowance is undermined.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s get a South East allowance, like London weighting, let\u2019s get it linked to the cost of living.\u201d<\/p>\n
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THE precarious nature of police officers\u2019 finances is \u2018terrifying\u2019 says Essex Police Federation. Officers are using food banks just to get by while an interest rate of just 1% could\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3934,"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\/4848"}],"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=4848"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4883,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848\/revisions\/4883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}