COP26: Officers must be paid fairly

27 October 2021

A row has broken out over the disparity in payments being made to officers who are been deployed to Scotland for next week’s COP26 United Nations climate change summit.

Jon Nott, chair of West Midlands Police Federation, is travelling to Glasgow today as part of the Federation’s delegation offering support to the 8,500 officers nationwide involved in the three-week policing operation for the conference. Around 450 of those will be from West Midlands Police.

Officers will be held in reserve for the whole time they are in Scotland and will have to be available to be deployed within four hours on their rest days.

But the Federation is arguing that this means their time off duty will not be proper rest days since it places unreasonable and uncompensated restriction on them.

“Throughout the planning of the policing for COP26 through Operation Urram, the Police Federation has argued that all officers volunteering for the mutual aid deployment for COP26 should be entitled to the same pay and allowances,” says Jon.

“But it is now clear that will not be the case. We have some forces, our own included, that will only be paying officers the overnight allowance while they are on ‘rest days’ during the three weeks they are held in reserve in Scotland.

“Meanwhile we understand others including Cheshire, Dorset, Greater Manchester, Hampshire, the Met, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk and Wiltshire are making some form of bonus payment to their officers, with at least one allowing its officers to claim £100 per rest day they do not work in Scotland to allow for the fact that they will be on a four-hour recall to duty.

“This shows that some chief officers have recognised the fact that officers’ rest days will be curtailed and restricted to the point that they cannot be classed as a proper period of rest. This is the approach we believe should be adopted for West Midlands officers and we are calling on our chief officer team to look at this as a matter of urgency.

“It is clearly grossly unfair as it stands. Police officers are making huge sacrifices while policing COP26. They will be away from their families, some for a significant period of time. Any restriction on what should be a period of uninterrupted and unrestricted rest needs to either be protected or compensated. It cannot be right that forces can put this restriction on rest days and yet make no payment to officers in return. Many forces are doing the right thing by their officers and we need West Midlands Police to do the same.

“Officers have worked incredibly hard during the pandemic, it has been challenging and they have already had to accept a zero per cent pay rise. This is an opportunity for the Force to show it truly values the commitment officers have shown to keeping the public and world leaders safe.”

Bonus payments are at the discretion of each individual force. But, the Federation says it is difficult to understand why chief officers are not acting in unison on this issue to ensure all officers are treated fairly.

“We continue to push for a fair approach, with all officers receiving the same payments to compensate for disrupted rest days, and have asked for this to be taken up with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and Operation Urram by national Federation colleagues. We must ensure there is parity,” says Jon.

“Given the months that have gone into the planning of this massive policing operation, it is frustrating and annoying that issues such as this have not been sorted out before now. But we are making strong representations on behalf of members to ensure this is addressed.”

Jon adds: “Some officers have suggested that they would not take the overnight allowance so they can go home while on their rest days but this is not possible as, according to our legal advice, they must be available for immediate deployment while they are held in reserve.

• West Midlands Police will keep officers on their Force shift pattern while they are working on Operation Urram. This means that when they work a WMP rest day in Scotland they will be paid rest day rate for that shift. Other forces have moved officers directly onto Operation Urram pattern therefore meaning they are not getting rest day rate for those shifts. The Force is also not requiring officers to repay any hours for any rest days in Scotland that should be a working day in WMP, while some other forces are.