Members want Federation to campaign for rights to pay negotiations

8 July 2024

Members have voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Police Federation of England and Wales re-establishing collective bargaining rights on behalf of police officers.

This will involve a public campaign and negotiations with the Government, led by national secretary Calum Macleod.

A total of 97.7 per cent of officers who took part in a national poll conducted by the Police Federation voted in favour of such a campaign.

“This gives the Police Federation an emphatic mandate to pursue collective bargaining, the ability to directly negotiate that we as a branch have long been calling for,” says Rich Cooke, chair of West Midlands Police Federation.

Constitution

“Police officers have a unique place in the constitution of the country and are subject to restrictions and limitations, such as not being able to join a trade union or go on strike.

“In the past, Government has respected this and we used to have a process, through the Police Negotiating Board (PNB) with recourse to the Police Arbitration Tribunal (PAT) if there was a dispute giving officers more confidence that they would be treated fairly. This process still exists for our colleagues in Scotland, and has delivered fairer pay despite the obvious constraints of recent years.

“But in 2014 the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) replaced the PNB and this not only removed the negotiation element of the pay review mechanism, but also the access to arbitration.

“PRRB has also proved to be far from independent. It is made up of a panel of Government appointees. The Government sets it remit, telling it what pay award it can consider, and also can choose to ignore any recommendations it makes, which it has already done in the past.

“The Police Federation has withdrawn from the PRRB process and now wants to see it replaced with a fair process that respects police officers’ unique situation.

“It is not lost on us that the Government is set to negotiate with junior doctors over pay, after months of strikes. Negotiations between employees and employer are reasonable and sensible. They naturally involve give and take, which can be inconvenient for both sides, but it is fundamentally fairer and gives us the respect we deserve rather than exploiting our relative weakness through the restrictions placed on us.”

Pay cut

Rich stressed that, despite police officers suffering a 20 per cent real-terms pay cut in recent years, it was not just about the actual pay award, it was fundamentally about the process for determining any uplift.

The Police Federation poll on collective bargaining ran from 3 to 21 June this year and attracted 50,103 responses.

The Federation’s National Council and National Board will now start to create the campaign for the introduction of a fair and binding pay mechanism.

“With a new Government now in place, this is the perfect time for us to renew the fight for fairness. We will give our members a voice and locally will be meeting with as many MPs as possible to explain our position and seek to garner support from those who represent us in Parliament,” said Rich.