Police officers to receive pay increase

National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Pay and Conditions, Chief Constable Francis Habgood said:

“Police officers work hard to protect the public and make an important contribution to our society. Chief constables support the decision to reward officers above the 1 per cent limit; it is deserved and recognises the additional costs of living and inflation. 

“For the first time, police officers will see their pay boosted by a non-consolidated pay award.  We will work with forces to explain what this means for officers.  The opportunity to target bonus payments more flexibly will help us to recruit and retain key hard-to-fill roles like detectives, firearms officers and custody officers.  

“We are working with the College of Policing and staff associations to design a new reward framework that will link pay to competence, skills and contribution so that officers and staff are rewarded fairly for the work that they do.  All officers and staff will have access to professional development so they have the opportunity to continuously improve and build new skills over the course of their careers.   

“On average, police officer pay makes up over 50 per cent of total force budgets, which have had real terms cuts of 18 per cent since 2010.  Police chiefs have budgeted in line with the public sector pay cap until 2020 so this change puts financial pressure on already stretched budgets.

“Chiefs and police and crime commissioners are committed to spending the money we have with absolute efficiency at both local and national level.  However, without better real terms funding protection from government, an award above one per cent will inevitably impact on our ability to deliver policing services and maintain staffing levels.”

On the point of police reserves, CC Habgood said:

“Forces have reduced their reserves by around 30 per cent since 2015 and reserves are projected to fall by another 30 per cent in by 2019.  Reserves are needed to respond to unexpected costs, such as the uplift in policing to respond to the raised terror threat level in May, and fund change programmes to improve our services.”

Further information:

The announcement from the Police Remuneration and Review Board can be found here with full details of how the award will be passed to all federated and superintending ranks across all pay points. 

This award, which would normally have been announced in July, deals with the claims submitted at the end of 2016. This is the first time that police officers have been awarded an element of both consolidated and non-consolidated pay and so we will work with forces and officers to explain what this means for them. 

All officers will received this increase, with plans for flexible targeted pay arrangements to be determined by the NPCC going forwards.