Police pay should reflect dangers of the job

9 January 2020

POLICE officers deserve a pay rise that reflects the difficult and dangerous job they do, Essex Police Federation has said.

A PFEW submission to the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) requested a 5% rise last year – part of a 15% increase over three years. Officers received just 2.5%.

Steve Taylor, Essex Police Federation Chairman, said: “It’s about time that our hardworking and brave officers receive more than just words of support from the new Government. It is time that the support that they receive should be felt in their pay packets.

“That request was an attempt to recover the chronic losses in police officer pay. That’s formed a large proportion of our submission to the PRRB, and that’s where we get the 5% for each year over three years just to get us back to where we were before austerity started. I think that’s the very least officers can expect.

“If it was up to me, I’d be giving well into double figure pay rises. And so we hope for, and we work towards, a significant increase in the way our police officers are paid.”

In the past 10 years, there have been numerous reports of officers struggling to pay their bills thanks to pay increases that have not matched the cost of living, with some even having to visit food banks.

Steve added: “We’ve got families at home and we have to put food on the table, and at this time of the year it’s heart-breaking to know for a fact that some of our colleagues even struggle to perform that even basic of function of putting food on the table. In this day and age, that’s just criminal in itself.

“Police officers need a pay rise, a decent pay rise, because the cost of living is most acutely felt in the South East. It needs to catch up in the way we are paid. It needs to catch up with the cost of living, and in this day and age, the fact that officers are having to use food banks is shameful, shameful, and that needs to be addressed.”