Metropolitan Police Federation - Constables' Branch Board

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Paul Deller - 11th January 2012

I was not at all surprised by the decisions of the Police Arbitration Tribunal (PAT) published this week.

It would seem that those who sat on the tribunal perhaps shared the same ideology as the Government, deciding that it was not about saving money and stopping the country from going bankrupt but is about the Modernisation of Police Pay and Conditions.

We have long been heralded as the last un-reformed public service something that is far from the truth, there has been some sort of change or modernisation happening to Policing for as long as I can remember.

During the disorder in the summer Police officers were called upon to work very long hours in the most testing of times to restore order to the streets, which we did to acclaim from the Public we serve, however the Government seem to have hastily forgotten this.

We must now wait and see if the Home Secretary decides to fully implement the PAT decision or not, I will not hold my breath and would expect her to take the decision in full, to do anything else would break the Tory party promise that they made before the election. Having said that it wouldn't be the first election promise they have broken since coming to power.

When implemented this PAT decision will damage the Police service for years to come, we will be heading back to the kind of terms and conditions that were rife in the days before the Edmund Davis report back in the late 1970âs.

The starting Salary of a probationary constable is £23,259 a recent report by the National Housing Federation stated that to get on the Property Ladder in an outer East London Borough you need a salary of £32,000 and a £8,000 deposit. So the freezing of pay for 2 years followed by a 1% pay cap and the further freezing of yearly increments will cause hardship to those youngest in service and virtually mean that they cannot afford to live in London and Police their local Communities. On current pay levels an officer will not reach the £32,000 mark until they have attained 7 years of service.

This Government seems to wish to demoralise all Public sector workers but are attacking the Police Service the hardest.

Yet whilst other staff associations are happy to take the government on and say no to their latest offers in relation to pensions and pay reforms the Police Federation of England and Wales has decided that we will roll over and accept this outrageous attack.

Rank and file officers and Local Federation officials have been told repeatedly that there was a plan B that we were prepared for PAT to go against us that we had a strategy. As recently as December 2010 I asked the National Chairman and Treasurer a direct question and received assurance that there were things being considered and looked at although they could not give us any details as that would let the cat out of the bag.

The Cat appears to be well and truly out of the bag now and itâs a toothless tiger and appears to be purring at the thought of the decimation of Police Officers pay and conditions.

As Chairman of London Constables I find this position unacceptable. We never had a march or a rally we did not give the membership the chance to take to the streets to show their displeasure, this was we were told an option for a later date, well it didnât happen and now itâs too late.

As has always been the case negotiation on Pay and Conditions were carried out by members of the Joint Central Committee, whilst local federation officials can give a view or suggest what could be negotiated on we leave the strategy to those full time officials of the JCC.

The chosen strategy seems to have failed, despite the fact that we have apparently played by the rules and kept quiet during the process we have not been rewarded in any way for playing fair.

There is a strong possibility that the Winsor Two report will talk amongst other things about regional pay, I am beginning to think that this maybe a good idea, we have always been told by those National Officers on the JCC that there is strength in national negotiation and that we should stand together that we are stronger as a National body and will be able to secure better terms and conditions within a national framework.

Well from where I am standing at the moment I would say that the Constables of London donât see this, they feel let down by the Federation and to be honest so do I.


Paul Deller
Met CBB Chairman

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