STARTLING new figures show police officers are increasingly worried about money with many saying they simply don\u2019t get paid enough to meet the basic bills every month.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a situation that can\u2019t be allowed to continue, says Essex Police Federation.<\/p>\n
The PFEW Pay and Morale Survey 2019 revealed just 36% of respondents said they had enough to cover the monthly essentials. 15% said they never or almost never had enough cash at the end of the month.<\/p>\n
Over half of all officers worry about money almost every day.<\/p>\n
Essex Federation Chairman Steve Taylor says it\u2019s not unreasonable for society to expect officers to be fairly compensated for facing daily dangers and protecting the communities they serve.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you continue to devalue the compensation for officers, when it doesn\u2019t keep up with inflation, when it doesn\u2019t keep up with the cost of living, then every time you roll the dice and you open the door to corruption, you open the door to officers stepping over the line trying to make ends meet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice officers have a unique role in society, and they face unique dangers daily. You only have to look around the country and see fallen officers to appreciate that\u2019s the case. It\u2019s not unreasonable for society to expect those officers to be fairly compensated for the risks that they take on, the roles that they perform in trying to keep us all safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve says police pay in real terms has dropped by 16% in recent years so any pay increases must be consistent and be applied not just as one-off payments but regular, yearly uplifts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to take a consistent effort of regular increases to get us back up to perhaps where we should have been. That\u2019s not increasing, that\u2019s returning levels of compensation to where they previously have been.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to keep making that case through the police Pay and Remuneration Body,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Regional allowances, which give officers working in more expensive areas of the country extra cash in their wallet to compensate also need a review, Steve said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our region, we get an allowance for being so close to London. That needs to be looked at. They get an allowance in London that\u2019s different to the one that we get just a couple of miles over the border.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to make sure that that\u2019s fit for purpose as well. We need to closely look at the way officers are compensated for the risks that they take on. Taking it all in the round, we need to be looking at the whole piece, and all of it needs to be increased.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we need to bring forward the evidence base to support that increase and hopefully start getting some positive change.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
STARTLING new figures show police officers are increasingly worried about money with many saying they simply don\u2019t get paid enough to meet the basic bills every month. It\u2019s a situation\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3993,"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\/95787"}],"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=95787"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97529,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95787\/revisions\/97529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}