7 March 2024

Policing Pay Must Keep Pace With Society

“The Police Remuneration Review Body is an independent body in name, but not in reality.”

That was the reaction of Dorset Police Federation Chair James Dimmack to a letter the Home Secretary recently sent to the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB). In it, James Cleverly reminded the PRRB that last year it recommended “historically high pay awards” for police officers and that this year it was vital that pay review bodies consider the “Government’s affordability position”.

James Dimmack said: “This is exactly why the Federation withdrew from the process. The PRRB is an independent body in name, but not in reality. If the Home Secretary is openly making these statements, he’s trying to unduly influence it. He mentions historic pay rises. They were only historic because we’ve been so staggeringly underpaid and under-rewarded in the past.”

James said that policing pay needed to “keep pace with society”. He continued: “We have to remember how far behind we’ve fallen, and we also have to remember that last year we were in unprecedented times for recruitment, getting back up to the levels of where we were before, and we need to push on to increase those levels.

“In order to do that, we need to be able to get pay structures right so we can recruit and, crucially, retain the best people for the job. Currently we are not doing that.

“It’s a competitive workplace out there. There are a lot of jobs and people are moving around. Policing is a vocation that should attract the very best people and they need to be rewarded. In order to attract them we need to make sure they are paid appropriately.”