PFEW Starts Negotiations With New Labour Government

It is a positive step that the PFEW is starting negotiations with the new Government and calling for a fair and transparent pay mechanism, Hampshire Police Federation has said.

It follows a poll of more than 50,000 officers, run by the Police Federation of England and Wales, asking them whether they should pursue negotiation with binding arbitration when determining police pay. A huge 97.7% of those polled agreed that the PFEW should pursue such rights.

Hampshire Police Federation Chair Zoë Wakefield said: “I completely agree with the nearly 98% of respondents who said we should have collective bargaining on pay. I think we need that binding arbitration.

“If there was a proper mechanism to determine our pay, then that has to be a binding decision on the Home Secretary. It can’t be right that one politician gets to decide the pay of over 147,000 police officers, which has been the case before.

“A lot of the time, the Police Remuneration Review Body’s recommendations are quite sound, it’s just that they are ignored by the Government. And whenever the politicians get a big pay rise, they say ‘Oh well, that’s what the independent panel decided we should get’. You don’t interfere with them in your own pay, so why interfere in ours?”

PFEW Acting National Chair Tiff Lynch has also called on the Government to set right the “grossly unfair” pension trap, as well as providing sustained funding and recruitment reforms to rebuild trust and ensure effective policing.

Zoë said: “There is still unfairness with the pension and it is the right thing for the Federation to do to fight it, which obviously wasn’t done before. It’s right that the Federation should now do everything they can to correct that unfair pension trap.”