Home Office Mustn’t Interfere With Police Pay Body

“The Police Remuneration Review Body is being directed and influenced by the Home Secretary, which shouldn’t happen,” the Chair of Hampshire Police Federation has said.

Home Secretary James Cleverly has sent a letter to the PRRB reminding it that last year it recommended “historically high pay awards” and that this year it was vital that pay review bodies consider the “Government’s affordability position”.

This was interfering with the PRRB’s independence, said Hampshire Police Federation Chair Zoë Wakefield: “The PRRB is being directed and influenced by the Home Secretary, which shouldn’t happen. It’s meant to be independent and it should be truly independent. The Home Office should let it get on and do its job, and then accept what it recommends and not interfere with the process.”

Zoë continued: “When MP pay rises are announced, they’re always nice and high, and MPs respond by saying: ‘We can’t interfere with the process, because it’s independent.’ We don’t really have any way of challenging them on this.

“This is exactly why the Federation withdrew from the PRRB, because it needs to be a fairer process. Our pay is still way behind what it would be; it should still be above inflation to account for the deficit that we’ve had.

“Yes, the last pay rise was high, but so was inflation, gas and electric bills, and the price of food. It’s not like our pay rise was out of kilter with everybody else’s.”