Judicial review to go ahead on police pay

24 January 2019

Polfed

The Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) has welcomed the news that its application to lodge a judicial review (JR) has been accepted. A hearing is likely to be heard in the summer.

John Apter, National Chair of PFEW, said the decision to take action was an easy one as the PFEW was not prepared to sit back while its membership suffered and welcomed today’s update. “We welcome this positive news and will now be working hard to prepare and plan for this important issue which is crucially important to our members,” he said.

The PFEW took the decision in October to formally lodge legal proceedings after the Government’s failure to act on police pay recommendations. The JR proceedings are into the lawfulness of the Government’s decision to ignore the recommendations of the Police Remuneration Review Body (PRRB) for the second consecutive year.

The pay ‘award’ in July 2018 saw officers pay increase by just £2.50 a week. The PFEW recommended a 3.4% increase so that officers could be paid fairly for the dangerous job they do after years of austerity. The PRRB recommended a total of 3%.  Mr Apter said at the time that “we must have confidence in an independent pay review system” and for that to be ignored by Government “undermined the whole process.”

Today he added: “Our members do not have industrial rights so it’s important they know we will stand up for them and fight their corner. It was only right that we legally challenged the process and the unfairness as doing nothing was simply not an option.”

The JR against the Home Secretary is on the basis that he has stated that the pay decision was a Government decision and not his decision alone.