Chairman Matt Webb on the 2020 pay submission: "Police officers perform a unique role in society and need to be appropriately remunerated for the work they do. We must do all we can to retain experience."

10 February 2020

"Police officers perform a unique role in society and need to be appropriately remunerated for the work they do. We must do all we can to retain experience as it is these experienced officers who will train the recruits of the future."

The 2020 police officer pay rise submission has been made – with the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) calling for a 5% pay rise for all police officers.

It is also asking for a minimum starting salary of £24,177 for new recruits.

Other submissions to the Police Remuneration Review Body include:

- The removal of the lowest two pay points for Constables, to facilitate recruitment;

- The shortening of the Constables’ and Sergeants’ pay scales;

- The introduction of new top pay scale points for all ranks, to incentivise retention;

- An increase in location and dog-handler’s allowance - and that both London and South East Allowances should be increased to be 150% of their current values.

Matt Webb, Chairman of Sussex Police Federation, said "This years’ PFEW submission to the PRRB deals with recruitment and retention problems, ensuring we bring in people from all backgrounds and allow people with families or other financial commitments to consider policing as a career change, once recruited, it provides the greatest opportunity to keep them. It does this while retaining the service based progression that we know is seen as fair by our members.

"This submission, if accepted will go some way to reducing the real terms pay cut seen by officers over the last decade and it will be interesting to see if the NPCC have retained their position of another below inflation pay rise.

"Whatever the outcome the pay increase must be paid for with additional money and not come from the current budgets as this will simply mean that we will be ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’.

"Police officers perform a unique role in society and need to be appropriately remunerated for the work they do. We must do all we can to retain experience as it is these experienced officers who will train the recruits of the future."

All sides – Home Office, Chief Officers, Staff Associations - submit their recommendations to the independent PRRB who then submit a paper/recommendation to the Home Secretary Priti Patel who has a final decision on the pay rise for 2020, usually made in the summer.

It usually kicks in in September. Last year - the PRRB recommended 2.5% for officers, which was accepted/implemented by the Home Secretary in full.

John Apter, Chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: "This comes on the back of 10 years of austerity measures which has seen police officer’s pay either frozen or capped, like many other public sector workers at 1%.

"So a new recruit might be starting now on £18,500. Now, if that stays as it is that means that police officers, who many politicians proclaim to be the bravest in the world and are doing fantastic, great stuff, well that means that those officers are on 15p an hour more than the living wage.

"That is completely unacceptable. So we’re calling for an increase for starting pay which will take them to over £24,000, to recognise the role that they carry out and the dangers that they face, but also an overall pay rise of 5%.

"It doesn’t even fill the gap of the, in real terms, 18% cut in pay that police officers have seen over the past 10 years. But our submission is based on evidence and we think it’s realistic, and the Government must listen.

"If the Government want to retain police officers, if they want to recruit police officers, then they have to pay them fairly. It’s no good standing on the step of Parliament proclaiming how fantastic they are when they don’t give them the pay they deserve."

More on the submission here: https://www.polfed.org/…/police-officers-do-a-unique-job-t…/