General Election: ‘Government must now deliver’
10 July 2024
The new Government must deliver on its manifesto pledges in relation to policing if it’s to gain the trust of police officers, says the chair of Gwent Police Federation.
Matthew Candy says officer morale is low, after years of budget cuts impacted on policing services and also led to Federation members seeing a 20 per cent real-terms reduction in their wages.
“Labour set out its plans for policing in its pre-election manifesto and now that the party is in power after a landslide victory in Thursday’s poll it has to make sure it that it delivers,” says Matthew.
“As ever, it’s going to be a case of waiting to see what happens and at the crux of the matter, I imagine, will be making sure it has the funding to puts its plans in action.
Pledges
“But a failure to deliver on its pledges will risk damaging the relationship with policing.”
In its election manifesto, Labour set out plans to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour with a mission to ‘take back our streets’, reduce serious violence and rebuild public confidence in policing by getting officers back on the streets.
The party said it would introduce a new Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, restoring patrols to town centres by recruiting thousands of new police officers, police and community support officers (PCSOs) and Special Constables and putting 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and PCSOs on the beat.
Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer.
It pledged to introduce new penalties for offenders, get knives off the streets, set up a specialist rape unit in every police force and launch a new network of Young Futures hubs.
Funding for its manifesto pledges would come from ending private schools’ tax breaks and a Police Efficiency and Collaboration Programme.
“As a Federation, we welcome the plans to get officers back out in their communities, providing the visible policing presence that we know the public want to see,” says Matthew.
“Neighbourhood policing, just like so many other areas of policing, was hit by the budget cuts and while the Police Uplift Programme boosted officer numbers nationwide by 20,000 over the three years up until the end of March 2023, which has made a difference but we are still only at the officer levels we had at the start of austerity – yet the demands placed on us in that intervening period have significantly increased.”
Officer pay
In addition to fulfilling its manifesto pledges, Matthew has also called on the Government to overhaul the mechanism for reviewing police officer pay and commit to long-term investment in policing.
He says the Police Remuneration Review Body is not fit for purpose and must be replaced with a process that is truly independent of Government and including access to binding arbitration.
“Police officers just want to know that they are being paid fairly for the challenging and often dangerous role they undertake,” Matthew explains.
“Sadly, they do not feel that is the case at the moment so I hope the Government will take action on officer pay and recognise the unique place police officers have in society.
“Addressing police officer pay is part of an overall need to commit to sustained investment in policing. Finding the funding for short-term initiatives is all well and good but for police leaders to properly make plans for providing effective policing services for their communities they need to know money is available in the longer term.”
READ MORE: Federation to launch campaign for fair review process.
