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Police Fury and Outrage at Home Secretary's Double Dealing over Pay
Early additions of today's Daily Telegraph have carried a story over this year's pay rise for 170,000 police officers in the UK. The story carried a copy of a letter (dated 30/11/07) from the Home Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in which she details her intention to ratify the Police Arbitration Tribunal's Award of 2.5% but to backdate it to 1st December and not 1st September (the start of the police pay year) effectively reducing the award to 1.9% in line with Government pay policy.
Mark Botham (Chairman of North Yorkshire Police Federation) said,
"Throughout the negotiations the Home Office appear to have been underhand and shown utter contempt for both policing and police officers.."
He continued,
"Police officers have waited patiently for their pay rise. It should have been paid from 1st September. Ms Smith's intention to pay it from 1st December has effectively taken money from police officers and their families, money that is rightfully theirs, not money provided by a secret donation.
The hard working police officers in North Yorkshire are furious about this and she should be ashamed of herself."
He added,
"Ms Smith clearly sees the inability of police officers to take any form of industrial action as a weakness to be exploited for this year and future years. Officers will not stand for that. The balance is shifting and across England and Wales many are openly calling for the right to strike.
I cannot see how we (the police service) can work with Ms Smith - there has been an irrevocable breakdown of trust and that is no basis for a working relationship. Even if she were now to back date the rise to 1st September it would be too little too late; the content of the letter is about so much more than just when the rise is back dated to, it is about trust. I would invite the Home Secretary to consider in the light of this debacle whether her position is now tenable."
MEDIA RELEASE ENDS
Notes to Editors
- North Yorkshire Police Federation represents constables, sergeants, inspectors and chief inspectors.
- Since the late 1970s police pay has been up rated by an index that has fully taken account of the unique status that officers hold in society - the inability to take any form of industrial action and the numerous restrictions on their private lives. Whilst the index has changed over the years that unique status has always been factored in. Last year the Government chose to unilaterally move away from the index, the matter went to arbitration and we were awarded a rise in line with the index. Sir Clive Booth was commissioned by the Government to do an "independent" review of police pay, including a new index for 2007.
- This is the link to the Daily Telegraph story:
This year's pay rise was negotiated through the Police Negotiating Board (the arena for negotiating police officers' terms and conditions) but a failure to agree was lodged. A rise of 2.325% had been consistently offered but was rejected over the desire to stage it, effectively reducing it in real terms to 1.85% (below the Government's pay ceiling of 2%).
The issue passed through conciliation to binding arbitration; this reported on 29th November 2007 giving a rise of 2.5% backdated to 1st September. Whilst arbitration is binding on those attending, it is not binding on the Home Secretary who can change the award in whole or part.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/05/npolice105.xml
