Officers urged to Have Their Say as PFEW launches Pay and Morale Survey

27 September 2024

It is important that City of London Police officers fill in the 2024 Pay and Morale Survey so that chief officers know what’s happening on the ground, the City of London Police Federation has said.

As well as pay and morale, the survey covers areas such as mental health, wellbeing, demand and annual leave. The findings help the Federation provide evidence to support its ongoing national pay campaign and push for improving working conditions.

This year it contains three extra, topical, questions: ‘What unique aspects of policing should be considered when police pay is being reviewed?’; ‘Given the recent unrest across the UK, how safe and supported did you feel while on duty?’ and ‘Does social media have an impact on the way you are able to perform your role?’.

City of London Federation Chair Mike Reed said: “It’s really important that our members take the time to fill out the questionnaire and be truthful with their answers. Don’t write what you think the management wants to hear, because if the problem’s not highlighted, the problem can’t be fixed.

 
“We’ll use the evidence from this survey to approach the chief officer team and try and put any wrongs right. It’s really important to hear members’ views on mental health, too, as there’s been an uptick in people reporting sick with mental health issues.

 
“There are also increasing workload demands. The work dynamics of the force have changed, with more younger officers, which means that sometimes the skills are in the wrong places.

 
“It would be good to get a lot of officers responding to this survey, so that we can spell out to the force where the problems are, and which demographics are experiencing those problems. After all, we want to make coming to work a lot better and a lot more enjoyable.”

Mike admitted that officers received a lot of surveys and could be suffering from ‘survey fatigue’, but said that they were all important in order to present a “clearer and stronger picture” to those in charge.  

He said: “I’m aware that the Commissioner has just released his Pulse survey too. But it is good if each of these surveys comes back with the same message: then it’s a lot harder for people to ignore or to say it’s a one-off. The statistics will build up a much clearer and stronger picture. So it’s really important that you fill in not just our survey, but the Commissioner’s survey as well.”

 
The deadline for filling in the Federation’s Pay and Morale Survey is Monday 28 October.