Received: 12 September 2019

Could you tell me when the pay freeze started and ended please (around the 2011 time) and also, if different, when the freeze on increments (i.e. rises with additional years-service) started and ended.

Responded: 4 October 2019

We can confirm that there was a freeze on incremental progression (pay progression) from 1 April 2012 – 31 March 2014 whereby no reckonable service was accrued during this time.

Home Office Circular 10/2012 set out how the incremental freeze would operate, it noted there would be a “Two-year suspension of incremental progression for officers below the top of their pay scale from 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2014. However, the first three increments for officers on the constables' scale will be exempt from this. This means that an officer could progress to point three of the constables' pay scale during this two-year period but no further.

At the end of the suspension period, further progression will be by moving to the next pay point above the one that the officer was on [during the] suspension period. Reckonable service accrued before the commencement of the suspension period will count towards progression afterwards. To take the example of an officer who has completed 6 months' reckonable service at pay point 5 on 31 March 2012, the officer will move to pay point 6 on completion of a further 6 months' reckonable service commencing on 1 April 2014.”

In addition, the public sector pay freeze covered a period from 2011 – 2013. Police officers usually receive their annual pay award (i.e., inflationary increase) on 1 September each year and an increase was awarded on 1 September 2010. However, officers did not receive an increase on 1 September 2011 or 2012. An increase was next given from 1 September 2013.

So, in effect, the pay freeze (not incremental freeze) started from 1 September 2011 and ended on 1 September 2013.