Future of police officer pay unclear after PFEW and Supers pull out of PRRB

THE future of police officer pay is unclear now that both the Police Federation of England and Wales and the Police Superintendents Association have pulled out of the Police Pay Review Body.

The Supers’ President Paul Griffiths announced at its annual conference earlier this month that the Association has joined the Federation in abandoning the PRRB, now that neither organisation has any faith that the Government will adhere to its findings – meaning the body is now dead in the water.

Zoë Wakefield, Hampshire Police Federation Chair, said the PRRB “could be dragged out of the water and resurrected” if only the Government would engage properly with the staff associations over pay.

She said: “The Government needs to give us the reassurance that it is going to be an independent process and change it, adapt it, so that it is independent. I don’t think it needs complete scrapping because it could work. I think it’s a decent process if it is truly independent from Government influence.”

She said staff associations were fed up with working hard to build up evidence for a pay rise recommendation only for it to be ignored.

She added: “Pay is so important. Police officers are not paid appallingly but the pay does not equate the risk that officers face.”

Zoë said that in the pay review before last, the PRRB had accepted that it would examine the South East allowance, but the Government ignored the recommendation.

“It’s really frustrating”, she added. “We put in a lot of effort collating all the right evidence and then it feels like a waste of time because it just gets ignored. I think the PRRB are feeling that frustration as well because they even put in their report, ‘We wanted to consider a pay rise for police officers but we were told we couldn’t’.”